Volkswagen CEO sees autonomy transforming cars more than electrification

With probably 10-times more lines of code than what is on a smartphone, cars are already software products and will be ‘the most sophisticated Internet device you can imagine’ when they’re rendered driverless, Diess said. — Bloomberg

Volkswagen AG is undergoing the world’s largest industrial overhaul for the electric-vehicle age, plotting half a dozen battery plants just in Europe and retooling assembly lines around the globe. And yet, its chief executive officer sees autonomous-driving technology bringing about an even bigger shift.

“This change will transform the industry more than EVs or the electrification does,” VW CEO Herbert Diess said in an interview for Bloomberg’s Qatar Economic Forum. “The car becomes so different when it’s driving autonomously.”