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Volkswagen wants to put one-million cars off the road. That may sound like so much corporate suicide, but it's actually the mission statement of its new MOIA startup sub-brand. MOIA is Volkswagen's autonomous, electric skunkworks and it's just shown off its first possible vehicle.
Looking much like a fuiuristic Crafter van, the MOIA car is a six-seat electric vehicle, fully autonomous, and can travel for around 300km on a single charge. The idea is that it's a ride-hailing, ride-sharing personal bus - you can either book it out entirely, or hop on board someone else's journey if they're going the same way as you. Each seat has been designed to have plenty of space around it for legs and luggage, and there are USB ports, reading lights, and on-board wifi to make a journey pass more easily. You book your seat through an app, which uses an algorithm to work out a route for all passengers which includes the fewest detours.
"The car represents total comfort and is a crucial piece of our consistent service experience. We developed it using our co-creation process, which involved multiple rounds of potential users of various age groups testing cars and providing feedback. Many of the ideas from this process went directly into the development of the car. We're also working on other future versions as well," says Robert Henrich, MOIA's COO.
The car will make its debut at the upcoming TechCrunch summit in Berlin. "We started one year ago at TechCrunch in London with the vision of partnering with cities to improve the efficiency on their streets. We want to create a solution f or the typical transport problems that cities face, such as traffic, air and noise pollution, and lack of space, while simultaneously helping them reach their sustainability goals. In a short time, we've laid the groundwork to add a new mobility component to the urban mix. In 2018, we'll be ready to launch our ride pooling concept internationally and take the first steps toward our goal of reducing the number of cars in major cities by one million in Europe and the USA by 2025," says Ole Harms, MOIA's CEO.
The plan now is for MOIA to roll out its ride-sharing services in Hamburg in 2018, with plans for many more cities in the coming years.