Volkswagen has chosen Wayve for autonomous driving. Contracts have not yet been signed.
Volkswagen was supposed to choose the British startup Wayve as its new partner in autonomous driving. According to Der Spiegel, the company outperformed companies including Nvidia in internal tests, but the final contract has not yet been signed. The terms of cooperation are now being negotiated by Audi’s procurement department.
Volkswagen, Cariad, and Wayve declined to comment. The information comes from three people familiar with the partner selection process, so we are still awaiting an official confirmation.
Wayve won on technology and price
A few weeks ago, Volkswagen compared systems from various suppliers in a large city in southern Germany. Wayve was expected to perform best both technically and financially. During one test drive, an Audi A6 e-tron equipped with the startup’s software detected that the driver of an approaching car signaled to give way, and then it automatically drove into the parking spot.
Wayve is developing an end-to-end architecture similar to Tesla’s approach in FSD. The artificial intelligence makes decisions as directly as possible based on data from sensors, rather than relying mainly on a set of pre-programmed rules. The demonstration drive sounds promising, but one maneuver still says nothing about the system’s reliability in thousands of less predictable situations.
For Volkswagen, time is of the essence. Audi lags behind Mercedes and BMW in terms of advanced driving systems, while Tesla has been collecting data for FSD for years. In July 2026, the Cariad and Bosch partnership focused on driving automation came to an end. However, the Level 2 system they developed will remain in use, including in the planned Volkswagen ID.EVERY1.
Wayve is primarily meant to provide the AI layer. Cariad would retain responsibility for integrating it with the car’s sensors, computers, and other software. Nvidia is said to have offered a complete system, which could result in a significant portion of Cariad’s approximately 1,200 employees in the autonomous driving division losing their jobs.
Nvidia is not disappearing from the picture, however. The American company is a shareholder in Wayve and supplies computing hardware used in the startup’s projects. It is still unknown which computers will ultimately end up in Volkswagen vehicles.
Cariad cuts costs while MOIA continues to seek a solution
The choice of Wayve could also apply to MOIA’s robotaxis. Volkswagen has been unsuccessfully searching for an external investor for this company for some time. Incorporating Wayve or Nvidia would allow driving assistance systems in passenger cars and Level 4 autonomous vehicles to be based on more similar technologies.
Cariad is also expected to improve its operating result by 400 million euros and reduce investments by around 6.1 billion euros over five years. The company’s CEO, Peter Bosch, announced the elimination of about 1,000 of the more than 4,000 jobs. Meanwhile, Volkswagen is developing a platform with Rivian for the next generation of software-defined vehicles, while Cariad will focus on areas such as infotainment and autonomous driving.
It has not yet been decided how the budget, workforce, and responsibilities will be divided between Cariad and Audi. Only once a contract is signed will it become clear whether Wayve will serve as the software provider or a partner for the broader range of autonomous projects within the group.
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