VW reportedly picks Wayve over Nvidia for autonomous driving, says Der Spiegel: Europe's answer to Tesla FSD
British startup Wayve, which uses the same end-to-end approach as Tesla FSD, reportedly won a comparison test Volkswagen ran in southern Germany. No contract has been signed and VW isn't confirming.
Volkswagen has reportedly chosen its partner for the next step in autonomous driving, and it isn't Nvidia. According to German magazine Der Spiegel, citing three insiders, the group has gone with Wayve, a London-based AI startup. Wayve is said to have won an internal selection against Nvidia and about a dozen other suppliers.
That matters for Tesla watchers too. Wayve works the same way as Tesla FSD: a single neural network learns to drive directly from camera images and sensor data, instead of following thousands of hand-written rules. If the deal is signed, Europe's biggest carmaker would be betting on the same philosophy as Tesla, just as FSD waits for an EU vote that has slipped to December.
Important: this is not officially confirmed. Volkswagen, Cariad and Wayve all declined to comment, and no contract has been signed. I found no VW press release and no Reuters confirmation. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and electrive picked up the story with extra details, but still based on Spiegel's report.
The test in southern Germany
According to Spiegel, VW pitted several systems against each other a few weeks ago in a comparison drive on the streets of a large city in southern Germany. Wayve reportedly convinced on both technology and price.
Spiegel also describes a moment from the test. An Audi A6 e-tron running Wayve software understood that an oncoming driver was giving way with a flash of the headlights. It then parked itself. It sounds trivial, but it's exactly the kind of social traffic cue that rule-based systems often miss.
Why not Nvidia
The difference comes down to how much the partner takes over:
| Wayve | Nvidia | |
|---|---|---|
| What it reportedly offered | The AI driving software | A complete system: chips, AI models, software |
| Cariad's role | Integrates the software into its own architecture (sensors, compute, other software) | Much less left to do |
| Impact on staff | Cariad's autonomous-driving unit (about 1,200 people) keeps its work | A VW official quoted by Spiegel says about 1,000 people would have had nothing to do |
Nvidia isn't completely out of the picture, though. It holds a stake in Wayve, took part in Wayve's February funding round and supplies compute hardware for the startup's projects. Which hardware VW will end up using is still unclear.
The background: Cariad, Bosch and the pressure on Audi
The move follows the end of the automated-driving alliance between Cariad and Bosch. The AI-based Level 2 system the two developed stays in use, including in the upcoming ID.EVERY1, VW's affordable EV. For higher levels of automation, the group needed a new partner. Dr. Web reports that VW has put about €1.5 billion into the Bosch alliance since 2022.
Cariad is meanwhile going through a tough restructuring. The unit has to improve its operating result by €400 million and cut investment by about €6.1 billion over the next five years. CEO Peter Bosch has announced about 1,000 job cuts out of more than 4,000 positions. VW is developing its next generation of software-defined EVs with Rivian, and Cariad will focus on infotainment and autonomous driving.
Much of the pressure comes from Audi, which has fallen behind Mercedes and BMW in driver assistance. According to the reports, Audi's procurement department is leading the negotiations with Wayve. FAZ expects the talks could take several more weeks.
Wayve has raised about $2.8 billion from investors so far, according to FAZ. Dr. Web notes that VW would become the fourth carmaker to license Wayve's technology, after Nissan, Stellantis and Mercedes-Benz.
The choice could also matter for MOIA, VW's robotaxi unit, for which the group has long been looking for an investor. According to electrive, VW has considered bringing in a partner like Wayve or Nvidia there too, so that assistance systems in production cars and Level 4 robotaxis would share the same technology.
What it means for drivers
- Nothing concrete yet. There's no signed contract, no timeline and no model announced with Wayve. Nothing changes on today's VW group cars.
- The direction is clear, though. European carmakers are also moving to data-trained, neural-network driving, the approach Tesla uses for FSD. Systems in the coming years should cope more naturally with unexpected situations, not just motorway cruising.
- FSD will have more competition in Europe. When FSD gets the green light in the EU, it won't be the only system of its kind. Mercedes, BMW and, if confirmed, the VW group with Wayve are catching up.
- If you're shopping for an Audi, VW, Skoda or Cupra, watch for if and when new features arrive. Integrating new software into an existing architecture usually takes years, not months.
