At Volkswagen, the future began more than 50 years ago. The Future Research department was founded in 1970, and has been focussing on the development of mobility and current social trends ever since. Autonomous driving was the first area to be tackled by the department, laying the foundation for later systems that have long been established as standard equipment in today’s cars. These include automatic parallel parking, distance control, lane assist and camera-based driver assistance. It is important to recognise trends at an early stage, and to effectively assess their potential. The Future Research department also took on the area of electric mobility at an early stage and developed several prototypes and models on a small scale, including the VW Golf II diesel-electric hybrid, the VW Chico petrol-electric hybrid, the VW Transporter T2 Electro and the VW Golf CitySTROMer. Neither the time nor the technology were anywhere near ripe for the breakthrough, however. Everything changed with the introduction of Volkswagen’s ID. series. Electric mobility is no longer just a trend and future project – it is real, and part of the present.
Source: Volkswagen AG
