Car industry argues about networked driving

Car manufacturers like to talk about the benefits of networked driving: in the future, cars should warn each other of smoothness or obstacles – and even communicate with traffic lights and traffic signs. Above all, this fast data exchange is about better road safety and fewer accidents. In addition, intelligent networking could help save fuel, speed up green traffic lights and reduce emissions.

However, for this beautiful new and connected car world, the vehicles and the transport infrastructure should speak a common language. But the industry is divided, with which technological standard the data should be sent back and forth: via WLAN or mobile ,

In the near future, the EU Commission wants to set the benchmarks, so now comes movement in a dispute that divides the German automotive industry.

Mobile or WLAN as a basis?

Companies such as BMW, Daimler and Deutsche Telekom are relying on a mobile-based solution that is currently still available with LTE and soon with the faster Successor 5G should work. By contrast, the standard currently favored by the EU is based on a WLAN procedure.

“This technology setting slows down the construction of the future 5G network and inhibits the roll out of higher automation levels in Europe,” it says in an internal BMW argumentation paper, which is available to SPIEGEL. In addition, the WLAN-based solution needed a “proprietary cost-intensive infrastructure”, which unlike the more versatile 5G standard, could be used solely for road traffic. Insofar as the planned determination of the EU does not fit into the current 5G plans and objectives of the Federal Government, it continues in the BMW speech.

The counter-position is led in Germany by VW, which tests its own favorite straight in co-operation with Siemens at Wolfsburger crossings and develops further. It was decided in 2016 to introduce the WLAN standard, it says in Wolfsburg, meanwhile, put him next to VW itself also Renault, GM and Toyota in production vehicles. In the coming year VW wants to standardize the standard also in models with high sales volume.

At VW you get annoyed

By 2017, almost all premium brands would have supported the WLAN solution, they annoyed in Wolfsburg. As the co-ordinated launch date approached, “individual manufacturers made different choices internally”. “We see it with regret that no longer all manufacturers stick to the mutually agreed agreements,” says a VW spokesman.

The competition from Bavaria, on the other hand, considers mobile communications to be more versatile, efficient and future-proof. At BMW, one refers to a synonymous to one current investigation of the 5G car lobby alliance “5GAA” According to him, the mobile standard is superior to its competitor in several respects – for example, it should be less susceptible to interferences if several devices were operated in parallel.

The industry trend in the important US and Chinese markets also points in this direction, it is said. “If Europe is serious about its goal of becoming a leading market for connected and automated vehicles, it must quickly implement 5G technology,” says BMW Development Board member Klaus Fröhlich.

Ilja Radusch, an expert on networked driving at the research institute Fraunhofer Fokus, argues in favor of a compromise solution. “In its upcoming decision, the EU Commission should only commit to the general goals and not the concrete technical path to them,” he says. “After all, it’s about more road safety, and I’d even like to see both systems in each car, in case one is faster than the other in a dangerous situation.”