BERLIN--Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Oliver Blume has put plans for a self-driving vehicle under review in the first sign since his appointment two months ago that he is walking back some of his predecessor's most ambitious technology ventures. Mr. Blume is likely to delay the Trinty self-driving electric car project and could cancel plans to build a new factory for the vehicle near its headquarters, people familiar with the matter said. In a message Thursday that was seen by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Blume and VW brand CEO Thomas Schäfer told employees, "We are using this opportunity to review all projects and investments and determine whether they are viable." The move shows how Mr. Blume, who took the helm in September after the board ousted Herbert Diess, is beginning to reorder VW's most ambitious--and fraught--endeavors to focus on near-term implementation of key software and technology for coming models. A personal, guided tour to the best scoops and stories every day in The Wall Street Journal.

An autonomous bus has a test drive with passengers aboard in Qingdao, Shandong province on Sept 19. International carmakers are partnering with Chinese companies to tailor autonomous driving solutions for their vehicles sold in the world's largest vehicle market. Last week, the largest carmaker in the United States said it is investing $300 million in Chinese autonomous driving startup Momenta. The deal is expected to accelerate General Motors' development of self-driving technologies for its vehicles in China, said Julian Blissett, executive vice-president of GM and president of GM China. "Customers in China are embracing electrification and advanced self-driving technology faster than anywhere else in the world," Blissett said.

As automotive chieftains gather in Munich this week for Europe's first major car show in two years, they'll do more than just lift the veil on shiny sheet metal. These are occasions where big deals tend to get done. Consider one of the last times the auto world descended on a European city for such a forum, in March 2019. Just before the action got underway in Geneva, the CEOs of Peugeot maker PSA and Fiat Chrysler met to sow the seeds of what blossomed into a megamerger, vaulting Stellantis NV into the same league as Toyota Motor Corp. and Volkswagen AG (VW). Toyota, Stellantis and Nissan Motor Co. aren't even attending, and carmakers that will are sending smaller contingents due to the surging delta variant.

MUNICH – Volkswagen head Herbert Diess on Sunday said autonomous cars, not electric vehicles, were the "real game-changer" for the auto industry, which is facing the end of combustion engines in Europe by 2035. Diess' comments signal the pace at which the 62-year old is trying to transform Europe's largest carmaker by basically saying that the shift toward battery-powered electric vehicles, which still needs to be backed up by actual sales, was sealed. "Autonomous driving is really going to change our industry like nothing else before," Diess said in Munich ahead of the official opening of the IAA Mobility Show, adding the shift towards electrified cars was "kind of easy" in comparison. "The real game-changer is software and autonomous driving." Diess spoke as environmental pressure on the auto sector is ramping up, with the European Commission in July proposing an effective ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035.

Volkswagen won't settle for off-the-shelf computing power with its self-driving cars. As Reuters (via Autoblog) reports, company chief Herbert Diess told Handelsblatt in an interview that VW will design its own high-performance chips for autonomous vehicles. It was a matter of eking out the best possible hardware, Diess said -- much like Apple and Tesla, the move would give VW "higher competence" in defining its processors. The automaker wouldn't build the chips themselves, but did want to own patents. The company's software division, Cariad, would expand to develop relevant expertise.

FRANKFURT - Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co. will cooperate on electric and self-driving car technology, sharing costs on a global scale to take a major step forward in the industry's disruptive transformation. VW will invest $2.6 billion in Ford's autonomous-car partner Argo AI in a deal that values the operation at more than $7 billion, the two manufacturers said Friday in a joint statement in New York, confirming a figure first reported by Bloomberg. This includes $1 billion in funding and VW contributing its Audi $1.6 billion Autonomous Intelligent Driving unit. "While Ford and Volkswagen remain independent and fiercely competitive in the marketplace, teaming up and working with Argo AI on this important technology allows us to deliver unmatched capability, scale and geographic reach," Ford Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett said. Ford shares climbed as much as 2.1 percent as of 9:40 a.m.

The autonomous driving world is about as incestous a place as Caligula's palace, and it got a little more so today, when Ford and Volkswagen announced a formal and long-anticipated alliance. "The alliance we are now building, starting from first formal agreement, will boost both partners' competitiveness in an era of rapid change," Herbert Diess, the CEO of Volkswagen, said on a call with reporters. He and Ford CEO Jim Hackett said the partnership--which is not a merger--will begin with the companies jointly developing and building medium-sized pickups and commercial vans, to debut as early as 2022. The automakers said the arrangement should "yield improved annual pre-tax operating results" by 2023. So hopefully, this makes everyone richer.

After an intense courtship that began in the summer of 2018, Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG announced Tuesday that the car companies are moving ahead together on delivering medium pickup trucks for global customers starting in 2022, with plans to follow up with commercial vans in Europe. The agreement is expected to provide scale and efficiency savings for both companies starting in 2023. In addition, Ford and Volkswagen said they are committed to exploring potential collaboration on electric vehicles, driverless vehicles and mobility services. Ford Motor Co. President and CEO, Jim Hackett, left, meets with Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen AG, Monday, Jan. 14, 2019, at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. "Over time, this alliance will help both companies create value and meet the needs of our customers and society," said CEO Jim Hackett in a news release.

This week, we learned the future of the car is not owning one--at least not if Uber gets its way. The ride-hailing giant came out with twin announcements: On Monday, it said it would acquire the bike-share company Jump, in a deal worth $200 million. On Wednesday, it announced a move into car-sharing and public transit ticketing, too, inking deals with the startup Getaround and the British mobile payments company Masabi. The goal: Making it much, much easier to live car-free, and maybe take a few UberX rides along the way. Meanwhile, Airstream rolled out an adorable and very practical new trailer that is, perhaps, too small to share with too many honies, and the Silicon Valley–based lidar startup Luminar shared its newest tech with transportation editor Alex Davies.

Volkswagen and artificial intelligence developer nVidia are collaborating to equip Volkswagen's vehicles with AI using nVidia's Drive IX platform. The platform is comprised of a software development kit that taps into Xavier, nVidia's latest AI processor which enables self-driving, creates user experiences and builds augmented reality applications. Upon integration, it activates AI-powered functions using sensor data inside and outside of the vehicle, such as facial recognition to unlock doors, gaze tracking, and windshield-projected navigational tools. At the Consumer Electronics Show kickoff, nVidia CEO Jensen Huang and Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess took the stage to discuss AI opportunities, highlighting Volkswagen's I.D. Buzz electric microbus concept as one of the technology's early adopters. "Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the car," said Diess.