The German auto manufacturer Volkswagen is expanding its partnership with the robot technology firm Kuka, according to recent reports. The expanded partnership will remain focused on developing ways that robots can potentially be used in conjunction with electric vehicle and self-driving vehicle tech to provide owners/drivers with useful services.
The news, which was revealed on Friday in a statement from Volkswagen, is surely related to the auto manufacturer’s growing PR efforts to rehabilitate its image following the diesel emissions cheating scandal.
In relation to these PR efforts, the company is claiming that it will be releasing quite a number of new plug-in electric vehicle models equipped with self-driving vehicle tech over the coming years. Presumably, the partnership with Kuka is a part of these overall plans.
Amongst other things, Volkswagen and Kuka — which was recently acquired by the China-based appliance manufacturer Midea — are working together on the creation of a system that can autonomously hook electric vehicles up to charging ports. You may remember the robot snake tech that Tesla showed off quite a while back (but has yet to commercialize). Presumably, Volkswagen and Kuka have their own snake of sorts in the oven.
The statement from Volkswagen noted on that matter that: “The driver simply has to position the electrically powered automobile in a designated parking space. The robot takes care of connecting up the charging cable for the driver.”
The statement noted that the two companies are cooperating on other, yet to be publicly revealed, concepts as well. It’s not clear exactly what these concepts would be related to. Any ideas?
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