“We” Ecosystem: How we are networking the world

In 2019, for smartphone users’ it has long since become part of normality: Around the clock, we are logged in to major providers. On the way to work, we download the latest content from app stores, listen to podcasts during the lunch break, communicate with friends via social networks, and buy both the most up to date fashion and furniture via integrated stores.

In particular, the use of digital mobility apps is becoming increasingly popular. While in Germany, for example, only 180,000 people were registered as carsharing users in 2010, the figure was 2.46 million at the beginning of 2019. Volkswagen’s own mobility platform, “Volkswagen We” follows this idea of the all-embracing log-in principle. Access enables users to access all the features and mobility services that Volkswagen currently already offers – and those that will be rolled out in the future. Some services can only be used with a Volkswagen, others can also be used in vehicles from other manufacturers and for some services the customer does not even need their own car. Every customer has a unique user-ID that gives them digital access to the world of “Volkswagen We” and links them to all mobility services within this network.

In 2019, Volkswagen entered the expanding carsharing business as part of this initiative, and with the first purely electric carsharing service, “WeShare”, it is making a sustainable offer possible. The brand also launched the personalized “We Experience” recommendation service. With the opening of the “We Campus” in the heart of Berlin in 2019, Volkswagen also created the basis for a continuous expansion of its “We” ecosystem.

“With ‘Volkswagen We’, we offer people tailor-made opportunities to use their own car in a variety of ways and to be mobile in a different ways. It’s simple, digital, and can meet every need,” said Christian Senger, Volkswagen Brand Board Member for Digital Car & Services, at the opening of the “We Campus” in Berlin in July 2019. We want to constantly expand our offering, and we’re working on it at the ‘We Campus’ in the heart of Berlin. There we have our finger on the pulse of urban mobility. The ‘We Campus’ offers us ideal conditions for the development and testing of new mobility services.”

Volkswagen has consistently geared its new location near Alexanderplatz to the requirements of modern digital development work. Agile working models play an important role, for which the office space concept covers a total area of around 15,900 square meters. At the “We Campus”, teams of experts, including product developers, software engineers and UX designers, work together across functions at one location. In total, the location brings together around 900 experts from Volkswagen and its technology partners who have previously worked at various locations.

Volkswagen also organizes the agile teams according to the “two-pizza principle” known from tech companies. According to this principle, the teams are only large enough for all members to be fed with just two pizzas. The approach behind it says that a team size of eight to ten experts is ideal to facilitate the personal exchange of information and thus the advantages of agile working, such as speed and hierarchy-free self-organization.

In addition to Volkswagen AG, its strategic partner diconium as well as UMI Mobility International, Volkswagen Group Services and the Volkswagen natural energy supplier Elli will also come together at the new location. In addition, the new campus will play an important role as a development center for the Volkswagen Group’s new “Car.Software” organization and will be an ideal location for other Group brands. In the new software unit, Volkswagen will have more than 5,000 experts in areas of competence such as software development, electrical and electronics development, connectivity, automated driving, user experience (UX), cloud architecture and e-commerce working there by 2025.

With its “Volkswagen We” ecosystem, the Volkswagen brand already offers a growing range of vehicle-related digital services and mobility offerings that can be used in cars or via smartphones. These include applications such as “We Charge” for cashless parking and charging, “We Deliver” for opening your own car for delivery services and cleaning, and “We Park” for easy and convenient parking. In 2019, Volkswagen expanded its digital ecosystem with the personalized recommendation service “We Experience” and the first sustainable e-carsharing service “WeShare”.

With “We Experience”, Volkswagen offers personalized recommendations and discounted offers for goods and services in the vicinity. Once the user has given their consent, the service uses the smartphone to identify where the vehicle is currently travelling. Relevant offers in the vicinity are thus identified. An algorithm specially developed by partner IBM plays out recommendations that are individually tailored to the user, such as tips and offers for restaurants, shops or services that the user confirms. In this way, “We Experience” learns which offers are relevant to the user. These can include recommendations for preferred restaurants in the vicinity or campaigns such as discounted car washes. Well-known partners are Shell, Domino's and Tank & Rast service stations. The individual offers are displayed to the user in the app and can be redeemed online or on-location. At the same time, Volkswagen entered the expanding carsharing business with its mobility service “WeShare” in 2019. With 1,500 e-Golf vehicles, the Volkswagen brand brought a completely electric fleet onto the streets of Berlin, which is entirely powered by green electricity. An additional 500 e-up! models will follow at the beginning of 2020 and, following the market launch of the ID.3 in mid-2020, the first models of the new all-electric Volkswagen model.

“WeShare” is a free-floating carsharing concept. “Free-floating” means that there are no fixed collection points where cars have to be picked-up or returned to. The vehicles are parked in public parking spaces. There are so many cars available that the customer can always find one near them. There are already a few of these carsharing services operational in Berlin. The special feature of “WeShare” however, is that the service only offers electric cars.

“With ‘WeShare’, we have tailored carsharing entirely to the needs of users: easy to operate and 100 percent electrically powered by green electricity,” emphasizes Senger. “We stand out from the competition with a range of products and services of this consistency and breadth. This puts us in an excellent position to participate in the expanding carsharing market.”

The “WeShare” business area currently covers around 150 square kilometers – from Berlin’s city center to beyond the municipal rail-transport circle line – and will expand as the vehicle fleet grows. Initially, customers benefited from the attractive tariff of 19 cents per minute and the elimination of the one-off registration fee, as well as the airport fee. Since September, tariffs have been offered in three categories at an average price of 29 cents per minute.

“WeShare” exclusively uses supermarket charging points at night

To charge its fleet, “WeShare” uses Berlin’s public charging network, including 140 current public charging points at 70 branches of the grocery store retailers Lidl and Kaufland. What’s special: Volkswagen exclusively holds the right to use the new infrastructure to charge its “WeShare” fleet overnight outside opening hours. Most of these will be 50 kW fast chargers, on which two vehicles – one at a fast charging point and the other at a normal charging point – can charge simultaneously. During the day, the 140 charging points are available to supermarket customers during the store opening hours. Between 23:00 and 6:30, the “WeShare” vehicle fleet has the exclusive right of use to these.This increases the efficient utilization of the pillars. With the additional charging points from Lidl and Kaufland, the public charging infrastructure in Berlin will grow by almost 20 percent.

“Supermarkets are the fuel stations of the future. The possibility of charging while shopping is an ideal solution. For the e-Golf, an average of just 45 minutes at the fast-charging station is enough. Together with Lidl and Kaufland, we are improving the charging options for customers and especially for our ‘WeShare’ fleet. This is Volkswagen’s next consistent step to equip the public space with charging points nationwide via partnerships,” says Senger.

The ease of use of “WeShare” was piloted by 2,500 exclusive users shortly before the official launch in 2019. The test phase lasted almost two months before it started. The data of all drivers in the test phase were evaluated anonymously at the “WeShare” headquarters and used to optimize the service before the official start, to find weak points, and consequently eliminate them. “In total, the approximately 2,500 active test drivers drove through Berlin on 67 test days,” says Ralph Philipp Reth, CEO of Urban Mobility International. UMI is a subsidiary of Volkswagen and operates “WeShare” in Berlin. Philipp Reth ,“We have learned a lot during this period, not only about usage behavior, but also about behind-the-scenes services: charging and servicing the 1,500 e-Golf models.”

Volkswagen deliberately chose the capital city as the starting point for its carsharing offer. “Berlin offers the ideal market for carsharing due to its large population and density and has the greatest potential,” explains Jürgen Stackmann, Member of the Board of Management for Sales of the Volkswagen brand. “Many people live here who have already tried out vehicle sharing – and the numbers are growing all the time.” Following Berlin, “WeShare” is to be introduced in other major cities in Germany and Europe in the future. As a rule, the focus will be on large cities with more than one million inhabitants. Jürgen Stackmann is convinced: “The first service in the “Volkswagen We” ecosystem, which is aimed primarily at non-car owners, will be a success. In the spring of 2020, “WeShare” will bring more than 1,000 electric vehicles to Hamburg, where it will also operate a completely pure electric only fleet.

Volkswagen will continue to expand its ecosystem services in the future. The fact that from 2020 all new models – starting with the fully electric ID.3 – will be connected to the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud will make many functions and services technically possible for the first time: from vehicle updates to individually bookable functions that can be activated in the car. More than 1.5 million customers are already registered with “Volkswagen We”, and the number is steadily growing.