Volkswagen recently announced the creation of a subsidiary called Volkswagen Autonomy (VWAT) to focus on making “market-ready” autonomous vehicles. We’ve previously blogged about OEMs collaborating in the AV space, such as the tie-up between Ford and VW, but it appears that with VWAT, VW is looking to chart an independent course towards producing AVs with a goal of having them on the market by the middle of the next decade.

With VWAT, VW is essentially creating a technology company that makes cars by bundling expertise from automotive and technology industries into a high-performance culture, with a focus on process optimization and scalability. VWAT currently has offices in Munich and Wolfsburg, but has plans to open offices in Silicon Valley and China in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

With a number of players in the AV space tempering their excitement (and indeed, closing operations), it remains to be seen whether the lofty goal of Level 5 automation will occur on a market-scale by 2030.