Hello and welcome to the Automotive News Shift podcast, where we bring you the latest on automotive technology, trends, and transformation.

I'm Molly Boygan, tech and innovation reporter at Automotive News.

Our guest today is Kristen Poland, deputy director of the National Transportation Safety

Board's Office of Highway Safety. We spoke about why the NTSB has been investigating fatal

crashes involving Ford Blue Cruise. These systems need the driver to be engaged. If our

marketing is giving a different messaging, then we're not

focusing on the safest opportunity for these L2 systems. But first, let's talk about the week. For that,

I'm joined by my colleague, Jack Walsworth, who covers VW Group, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz for

Automotive News. Hi, Jack. Hi, Molly. Good to be here. Thanks for rather than me.

Thanks for coming. So you wrote recently about how a top VW executive made comments that signal

that it'll be years before Volkswagen vehicles actually get RIVAN technology despite the fact that they

have this joint venture and partnership. So what did the company say and what did that indicate about the timeline here? Sure. So we spoke with a Volkswagen Group of America's CEO, Kell Gruner, at the New York Auto Show back on April 1st. And he didn't outright say it's going to be years, but kind of reading between the lines, he kind of gave us some clues throughout the conversation. Somebody asked him

about how the development of the joint venture is going. He spoke very glowingly about it.

You know, the quote was, he said this technology is exactly what Volkswagen needs. But he did

reiterate that it's software that can't be uploaded to an existing vehicle, meaning it'll be

only used on future platforms.

And also in the conversation, he said, it'll be at least a couple years before Volkswagen has a new electric vehicle entering the U.S. market.

So kind of adding those two pieces together, kind of looks like it's going to be a while

before at least the Volkswagen brand sees this joint venture, you know, coming through into

products.

It's possible we could see it with Audi or even scout vehicles.

It doesn't make the ones they get it first, but, you know, Volkswagen Group at this point

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