Audi and Porsche: Waiting for a new operating system – Auto & Mobil

All car manufacturers have delivery problems, but it’s different with Audi and Porsche: The fully electric twin brothers Q6 e-tron and Macan E were announced for this year, but they are now being presented twelve months late. The two super electric cars, which can mobilize more than 500 hp and a torque of 800 Newton meters, are more than just technology carriers, they are also high-yield volume models in the luxury segment. The delay is therefore not only embarrassing, but also an economic disaster, because follow-up projects such as the all-electric Porsche Cayenne are also being postponed.

For once, the reasons are not the lack of semiconductors or broken supply chains. Self-made software problems are to blame. The closely related luxury electric cars are still parked in the development labs because the Premium Electrics Platform (PPE) should be a big hit. The new sheet metal clothes are not a revolution, and the further development of the 800-volt on-board network for fast charging is more of a routine task. But for the first time, the operating system for all control units in the vehicle should not come from suppliers, but rather come largely from the VW Group itself. That caused a lot of trouble and ultimately cost CEO Herbert Diess his job.

The goal was to get ahead with electrics and electronics, but the new challengers from China and Korea are already circling around the VW Group brands. If there are no further delays, Audi’s large all-electric SUV will now debut at the next IAA in September 2023, with the Macan E set to debut at the LA Auto Show the following November. However, the first customer cars should not roll to the dealers until March 2024 – at prices from 75,000 euros for the Q6 e-tron and around 5000 euros more for the Swabian Stromer. The Macan E is built in Leipzig, while the Audi is built in Ingolstadt. The coupe-like Porsche will only be available in one body variant, Audi is planning the Q6 e-tron in the near future as a Sportback. But it’s not all set and dried yet. The (unofficial) pre-orders from customers are already piling up at the retailers.

The cars are by no means as expressive and experimental as the ever new design studies with which Audi wants to bridge the long waiting period. Apart from the air suspension, which is unusual in this segment, the technology does not hold any major surprises. Two battery packs with 96 and 115 kWh and at least four power levels are planned. According to reports, Audi starts with 400 and 500 hp. For the RS there are even 600 hp in the room. Porsche goes one step further and is even considering a 750 hp power pack for the Macan E Turbo S.

At the same time, both manufacturers are aiming for ambitious ranges. The smaller battery should cover between 500 and 600 kilometers, the 115 kWh variant even has the 700 kilometer mark in its sights. In 22 minutes, the state of charge should climb from ten to 80 percent. Inside, the Audi shines with a new cockpit concept. Instead of many small screens arranged side by side and one above the other, a slightly curved central display is used, which covers two thirds of the instrument panel, shows what is happening in 3D and can show additional dynamic information on two levels. The computer hardware is ready, the software is not.

“The E-Macan is a fine car all round – only with the software we are not where we want to be,” admits the new CEO and still acting Porsche boss Oliver Blume. This is where Cariad comes in. The software subsidiary founded by the VW group not only cost Herbert Diess his job because of its initial difficulties. “Anyone who wants to write their own software must understand that this is about developing a completely new type of car and putting it into practice,” says a Cariad manager from the very beginning. “This is a completely different, much faster process with new parameters such as perception, signal processing and failure behavior.”

Open detailed view

There’s a reason brands like Renault and Volvo are tying themselves ever more closely to Google, or the Android Auto operating system. Porsche is also in close contact with Apple, the talks are mainly about the infotainment system in the interior. Because the on-board computer, including language assistant and navigation maps, is no longer a closed system, but ultimately just the outpost of huge cloud platforms that feed their swarm intelligence from the data of many millions of (smartphone) users.

The challenge is to synchronize this external swarm data with the new on-board network and its sensors. Division of labor is the order of the day, because there is currently no chip that can master all tasks on its own. In addition, safety-critical functions must be designed redundantly if a computer fails. That’s why five central control units work together in the Macan E and Q6 e-tron: one operates the high-voltage system including the battery and motors, the second the driving dynamics, the third takes care of the infotainment, a fourth the assistance systems and, in the future, highly automated driving functions. The fifth central computer has a gateway function, i.e. it controls the communication between the other computers and with the cloud.

“You have to think of the self-driving car 3.0 as a code that manages the virtual world of the real vehicle via neural networks – an artificial intelligence modeled on the human brain – by deriving the corresponding driving tasks from the real-time situation of the car,” says the Cariad expert. But the problems begin with the networked car radio, when a language assistant (instead of the precise buttons and submenus) has to understand the mumbled commands of the driver.

Open detailed view

Each trip is part of a never-ending learning process, with the Cariad team distinguishing between six critical application areas such as light/dark, certain weather phenomena, construction site/accident, relative speed and the risk of failure due to the sensors. O-Ton Ingolstadt: “The car has to look ahead and back at the same time, look to the side and transmit its precise position on the network – that would overwhelm anyone.” The tasks of the next software generation also include monitoring the high-voltage battery. The aim here is to detect system errors and failures at an early stage, to automatically reduce the pressure in the module to protect the neighboring cells, and to control the emergency ventilation.

With the delays, the further development steps are also in danger. In 2027, with the SSP architecture (VW Trinity, Audi Artemis, Porsche Taycan II), the next big leap is already on the agenda, in 2030 Porsche wants to sell 80 percent of its vehicles with battery drives – and the group wants to sell the first Level IV autonomous cars bring to market. To achieve the latter goal, long-term partner Argo AI was replaced by Mobileye a few weeks ago. In 2025, Porsche could possibly also switch to the new Apple operating system for infotainment, which is controlled by the further development of the miracle chip M1. But that’s music for the future. Currently, the software in the Q6 e-tron and Macan E must first run without errors.