Volkswagen May Walk Away From Bosch on Self-Driving Tech

There comes a point in every technology partnership where one side has to ask: is this actually going anywhere?

Volkswagen appears to be asking that very question about its autonomous-driving collaboration with Bosch. According to a report from Bild citing people familiar with the matter, the automaker intends to wind down the joint development program and find a new partner instead.

The reason boils down to two things: speed and money. The project has been moving too slowly, and Volkswagen is staring down serious cost pressures — the company has reportedly been considering cutting 100,000 jobs. When your headcount is on the line, a self-driving program that isn’t delivering becomes a hard sell.

Sources say Volkswagen’s internal assessment is that the technology developed with Bosch simply isn’t competitive enough to justify continued investment. Rather than push ahead, the plan is to source both hardware and software from a different — and currently unnamed — supplier, with the goal of bringing autonomous driving to more affordable vehicles.

Volkswagen has previously predicted that Level 3 autonomous driving would become a standard feature in new cars by around 2030. At that level, drivers can hand over total control on certain roads and traffic conditions, only needing to take the wheel when the system asks them to.

If Volkswagen follows through on this split, it would mark a significant realignment in the automotive supply chain. Bosch is one of the world’s largest auto parts suppliers, and losing a flagship development project with a major automaker would be a blow. For Volkswagen, the move signals a pragmatic — if somewhat desperate — reset: better to admit a partnership isn’t working than to keep pouring resources into a dead end.