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On the occasion of the internationally anticipated reopening of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin on August 22, Volkswagen and Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin are going to announce a two-year extension of their long-lasting partnership. This step underlines stability and sustainability of this collaboration which will particularly aim on prolonging and expanding the Volkswagen ART4ALL visitor program.

Over the years, the partnership has empowered a variety of acclaimed exhibition and performance projects including a series of eight 3D concerts by the electropop group Kraftwerk. The stage performances took place in 2015 in the Neue Nationalgalerie originally designed by Mies van der Rohe and comprehensively renovated by British star architect David Chipperfield. With its reopening the Neue Nationalgalerie will become part of the Volkswagen ART4ALL program offering visitors one day of free entrance every month. Similar to Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin where Volkswagen ART4ALL was originally launched and is now being continued, free access will be granted to exhibitions and collections as well as to different education programs.

The partnership is led by a joint commitment to aim for an inclusive access to culture and the arts by inviting a wide audience to cultural experiences. Benita von Maltzahn, Director of Cultural Engagement at Volkswagen, explains the approach: “By developing and firmly establishing ways to engage with culture we have offered many people with a chance to learn about artists and their work. We help to make knowledge, inspiration and education available to everyone interested, assuming our social responsibility as a company and bringing the idea ‘culture for all’ to life.”

Joachim Jäger, Director of Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, adds: “Leave the temple, enjoy the museum. Volkswagen ART4ALL enables Neue Nationalgalerie to reach out for a wider and more diverse audience. This program is intended to attract people who haven’t visited our museum before and it is that kind of new program that it needs to try new museum formats.”

At Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin its director Gabriele Knapstein is convinced by this the partnership and the jointly developed event format: “Between spring 2018 and winter 2020, Volkswagen ART4ALL at Hamburger Bahnhof was not only used by numerous visitors but also received a lot of appreciation. During the lockdown, Volkswagen ART4ALL went digital and we are now sincerely delighted to continue and expand this successful visitor program over the upcoming two years.”

Article source: www.volkswagen-newsroom.com

Volkswagen is strengthening its expertise in the integration of automotive software. At present, high-performance automotive functions can only be achieved by networking many individual software and hardware components. Integrating these components and testing the resulting assembly is a key development task for Volkswagen. As part of its ACCELERATE strategy, Volkswagen is seeking to grow automotive software integration and the digital customer experience as core competencies. The company has therefore established a joint venture with TraceTronic, a world-leading provider of solutions to test and integrate automotive software. Each partner holds 50 percent in the joint venture, named neocx, which will create a continuous integration/continuous testing (CI/CT) factory.

This is a platform which brings together high-performance tools for the automated testing and integration of automotive software and networked services. In this way, Volkswagen aims to accelerate the development of digital functions such as over-the-air updates, which are provided to the owners of ID. vehicles every three months. Prior to this, the updates are to be integrated and tested with solutions from neocx. This makes the new joint venture a key contributor to the development process.

Thomas Ulbrich, member of the Volkswagen Board of Management with responsibility for Technical Development: “With ACCELERATE, we have set ourselves the goal of evolving the car into a software-based product. The safe and efficient integration of software into our vehicles is therefore a critical competitive factor for Volkswagen. Our new joint venture, neocx, is a cornerstone in strengthening our expertise in this area so we can offer our customers a first-class digital driving experience.”

Rocco Deutschmann, CEO of the TraceTronic Group: “We are pleased that Volkswagen has chosen to partner with TraceTronic in the large-scale implementation of a CI/CT factory for Volkswagen and its suppliers. Deploying our TraceTronic software tools and expertise, we can help our customers worldwide with the continuous integration and testing of automotive software using state-of-the-art methods.”

Far shorter development cycles and faster updates

The neocx CI/CT factory is to provide scalable development and testing tools in response to the exponential increase in the size of software packages and data volumes in fully networked vehicles. It will make it possible to incorporate individual software components into integrated systems – such as driver assistance systems – at an early stage of development in order to test their compatibility and performance. The high-performance solutions from TraceTronic are the basis for this approach. In addition, the partners aim to consistently expand the functional scope of the platform. They are deploying new technologies and test processes from fields including machine learning, data analytics and scenario-based testing. The consistent use of cloud technology also facilitates the creation and integration of a highly scalable virtual testing environment.

CI/CT factory standardizes test and integration landscape

Volkswagen can already leverage internal Group synergies in developing software for its fully networked vehicles. CARIAD, the Group’s software company, is developing a standard software platform for all Group brands. neocx is a further building block in transforming the Volkswagen brand into a software-based mobility provider and has the goal of integrating the digital functions developed by CARIAD into Volkswagen’s vehicles, testing them in highly automated processes and accelerating the roll-out to customers.

Volkswagen is collaborating closely with Audi and Porsche in these activities. It is planned that the CI/CT factory will also be used by the sister brands in the future, thus harmonizing the testing and integration landscape across the Volkswagen Group. The standard interfaces will also facilitate the integration of development partners, suppliers and third-party tools.

Work on the CI/CT factory will start immediately. neocx will deploy agile methods and grow its workforce to a three-digit figure in the years ahead. The young company is therefore seeking to recruit additional experts for its main location in Dresden and its secondary location in Wolfsburg.

Article source: www.volkswagen-newsroom.com

With a range of controls at your fingertips, there's no need to take your hands off the wheel.

The multifunction steering wheel is very user-friendly and lets you take control of the radio, your music and other systems - even your phone- without taking your hands off the wheel. So you can switch tracks, tune in to a different radio station or turn up the volume, all without taking your eyes off the road for a second. The steering wheel's easy-to-use ergonomic design means you'll be driving with maximum comfort, convenience and added safety.

When used with the multifunction computer 'Highline' you have a wealth of useful data at your fingertips. You can move easily between the various screens to see information about your fuel economy, journey times and how many miles to go before you need to refill your tank.

Article source: www.volkswagen.co.uk

Red is a popular colour for sporty top models. And now the ID.41 GTX is a vibrant new addition. Color & Trim Designer Mareike Hackbarth explains why red paintwork is such a good fit for Volkswagen models with power and performance.

Mareike Hackbarth is delighted as she enters the studio. “I finally get to see the finished version of the car,” she says with a radiant smile as she walks around the ID.4 GTX. She strokes the shiny red paintwork. “How beautiful. The GTX looks really great as a full package.” The designer spent three years working on the car, and this is the first time she has seen the new member of the ID. family in real life. She comes from the world of colours and paintwork. In Volkswagen Design Color & Trim, as part of the MEB team she is responsible for the exterior colours of the all-electric ID. family, where she works on colour concepts, researching trends and futurology.

Mareike Hackbarth has brought various work materials with her to the interview and unpacks them: painted sample metal panels, replica models, colour cards, bottles of colour – boxes of red. After all, that is what today is all about. The colour that attracts the most attention and triggers the most emotions. And that has a long, very athletic tradition at Volkswagen: the colour red.

The list of shades of red at Volkswagen is long. The first shade of red was Coral Red in 1956, and more followed - usually with enticing names such as Bahia Red, Flash Red, Mars Red, Tornado Red or Salsa Red, and now Kings Red … Why has red been part of the range for so long?

When buying a car, after manufacturer and model, the colour is generally the most important deciding factor. The colour red is very expressive. Red is in motion and very dynamic. So, red exterior paintwork has long been integral to the Volkswagen colour range; there are well over 50 shades of red as it stands. Also very popular as a colour for fleets, red will continue to play an important role at Volkswagen – in its various shades.

When Mars Red was launched in 1976, it was the first time that a shade of red was launched at the same time as a new sporty model. In addition to Diamond Silver, Mars Red was the colour of the very first Golf GTI. A real “dream team” – and perhaps even something of a pioneer?

Absolutely. The GTI and the colour red belonged together from the word go. Sporty models have always been characterised by the connection “powerful and red”. The colour has a strong symbolism: red is blood, red is fire. The colour triggers feelings of activity, energy and a zest for life in us. This makes red the perfect brand colour to use for performance models: You associate it with driving pleasure and it attracts a lot of attention.

Tornado Red followed in 1986 – the colour for high-performance cars for decades. Countless top models of their time had the power paintwork, for example, Golf II GTI 16V, Corrado G60, Golf III VR6, Golf R32 or Golf GTI TCR. Why was that red such a good fit?

Tornado Red is a very dominant, positive and loud colour, which can be seen from afar. The complete opposite of a soft blue or innocent white. Tornado Red is a successful, timeless plain shade that is a really good fit for our sporty models – incidentally, this is the shade we used to develop our new performance highlight colour Kings Red Metallic.

Since the first GTI, red elements have remained sporty hallmarks. Is it fair to say that red is a common theme in the design of Volkswagen’s high-performance models?

Red is power. That’s what we want our performance models to get across at first sight – including the details. Which is why we use red as an accent colour, which is continued in the stitching or the standard diamond pattern, for example. A common theme, in many ways, which has now established itself as a hallmark of sportiness and power, yes.

… and that is carried on in the ID.4 GTX?

Definitely. We deliberately picked up on this common theme for the ID.4 GTX and reinterpreted it. The new electric mobility needs an innovative design. But the image transfer of Volkswagen performance models was also important for the GTX. We developed the new GTX world with the motto “Electric Vibrant Power”: very dynamic, pithy and powerful. A strong red combined with the colour black, distinctive, sporty features with dark blue and red interior highlights, such as the red double contrasting seam that runs through the cockpit.

What is important for a colour that characterises a new sporty top model?

Red is something that our customers associate with sportiness, we used this familiar aesthetic as a basis. The home of the GTX is the world of performance – and that is what we wanted to show with Kings Red Metallic. We wanted to create a symbol of a new performance product line in the electric age. After all, it’s not all about reason when it comes to climate-friendly electric cars; emotions, driving pleasure and acceleration are also involved. Red represents these attributes. So we developed Kings Red Metallic specifically for the GTI and the GTX.

What makes Kings Red Metallic special?

In the past, red symbolised prosperity, it was an expensive luxury colour. We wanted to upgrade the new models with a “royal” premium red, and worked hard to create a brilliant colour with deep saturation and strong luminosity. The double-layer base coat contains the coloured pigment and a red coated aluminium pigment, which gives the colour its extraordinary depth. The water-based paint system is also very environmentally friendly, ecologically sustainable and can be used in all production plants.

30 years ago, 50.4 percent of new passenger car registrations in Germany were for bright-coloured cars: With the number one choice being red with 25.2 percent of registrations. Since the turn of the millennium, the world of automobile colours has become more subtle. The proportion of bright colours decreased to just under 24 percent by 2020. The proportion of red cars was 6.7 percent in Germany and 5 percent internationally. Is red still an enduring colour? And what is the direction of the trend?

Red is one of the three primary colours and has countless shades. And in the same way that there are trend cycles, there are also colour cycles. The colour range in the automotive industry is evolving into a wider selection of colourful shades. In the coming years, coloured and customised paintwork will accentuate exterior designs more strongly. There is more diversity of colours in Europe; blue and red are increasing again among the bright colours. The current trend for red is bluish shades and we think that red will become trendier again in the future.

Red has different connotations depending on the culture: In Western cultures, red also represents love, courage, danger and warmth. In Eastern Europe it means beauty. Red is a symbol of joy among other things in China. As well as success, like in South America, for example. The greatest consensus around the world when it comes to red is that it is the colour of passion. Does the regional symbolism of a colour play a role?

Colours and combinations of colours trigger certain emotions in us humans. They make us curious, influence our state of mind and control our shopping patterns. Which is why we look at which shades are a good fit for the trend of a region, and what we can put on the cars there. Society, culture and economy are major factors; not all groups of colours are acceptable in all regions. For example, violet, gold and intense red are very popular in China at the moment, they are very expressive colours. It’s different in European countries. In South America, car buyers try to express their individuality with more sporty cars and red is the most popular shade of colour there. Each country has specific colour preferences. Which is why we work closely with our international design centres.

Article source: www.volkswagen-newsroom.com