VW Electronics Research Laboratory

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Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory ("VWERL")

Type	Private company, subsidiary of Volkswagen Group of America, Inc.
Industry	Automotive electronics
Founded	Sunnyvale, California, United States (August 1998)
Headquarters	Belmont, California, U.S.
Area served	Worldwide, with North American emphasis[1]
Key people	, Director
Services	Research and development
Parent	Volkswagen Group
Website	VWERL.com

The Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory (VWERL) is a division of the Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., with its headquarters in Silicon Valley (Belmont, California).

The VWERL's slogan Technology to the People! indicates its mission: to leverage Silicon Valley resources for the advancement of the Volkswagen Groups' products through technical knowledge and electronics expertise.

The VWERL has recently received media attention surrounding its joint victory with Stanford University in the DARPA Grand Challenge,^[2] a prize competition for driverless cars.

History[]

The Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory was founded in August 1998, and VWERL began operations in October 1998, with three employees. As of December 2002, the lab had outgrown its Sunnyvale, California office and moved to Palo Alto. In 2011 it moved again to Belmont. This current location provides a spacious office, workshop and prototyping areas for about 60 workers. It supports VWERL employees at Volkswagen Group of America's offices in Auburn Hills, Michigan, and the new headquarters at Herndon, Virginia.

Affiliation[]

The VWERL supports all brands within the Volkswagen Group.^[3] This includes Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Škoda, Bentley, and Bugatti as well as Audi, SEAT, and Lamborghini. In addition to working with research and development teams in Germany, the VWERL also supports the development of U.S.-specific features for the Volkswagen Group of America.

Research "teams" at VWERL[]

The VWERL comprises four teams:

• Driver Information and Assistance (DIA) - Instrumentation, visualization systems
• Human Machine Interface (HMI) - Interface concepts for driver assistance, infotainment systems
• Connected Vehicle (CV) - wireless infotainment, collaborative intelligence, distributed computing
• Test Concepts and Validations (TCV) - Testing procedures, specifications compliance

Headquarters[]

The VWERL's headquarters are located at 500 Clipper Drive, Belmont CA.

See also[]

• List of German cars
• Volkswagen Group
• Volkswagen Group of America

References[]

External links[]

• VWERL.com- VW Electronics Research Laboratory official website
• VolkswagenGroupAmerica.com - Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. corporate website
• Stanford Racing Team