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We're almost at the end of the first month of the Volkswagen scandal, which now includes 11 million cars and Leonardo DiCaprio. VW's US boss has testified to Congress, blaming a few rogue software engineers. All the while, questions have raged about VW Group's future: which projects are safe, which ones are on the chopping block, and how exactly will the company recover from this?
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VW's board has finally started to answer some of those swirling questions. For starters, there's going to be much more emphasis on electrification. Electric vehicles and hybrids have played more of a bit part at VW, compared to Toyota, GM, and domestic rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz. That's going to change with a standard electric architecture that can be used across multiple vehicles and brands.VW Group isn't devoid of hybrid and EV know-how. Audi's Le Mans program has taught it a lot about high voltage automotive systems, and Porsche has a wealth of experience from the 918 Spyder, Panamera Hybrid, and even the 919 Hybrid racer. VW would be smart to leverage all these programs.
VW is the largest car company in Europe. This is what sudden, disruptive technological change looks like.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Friday October 16 2015, @02:07AM
This is what PR looks like. I guess a switch to electric in Europe is imminent now that diesel has been shown to be crap.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheLink on Friday October 16 2015, @05:11PM
Should be much easier to optimize the diesel engines for efficiency and environmental friendliness if you're just using them at a narrow operating band for charging the battery/capacitors. Or at most two bands- "normal charging" and "extra power".