Subject: [ipwave] VW Golf 8 and WiFi/WLANp/Car2X

From: Alexandre Petrescu <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2019 17:10:17 +0100

I got to learn about VW Golf 8th generation (VW Golf 8, VW 8 for our
discussion).

On Oct. 24th they announced it on the web; it says uniquely (strangely)
'WLANp' and 'Car2X'.  These seem terms only use by VW, while others say
802.11p or Car2Car Consortium or V2X.  The announcement in French text
says 'WiFi' instead of 802.11p, which is wrong again.

Some of the features in the announcement text make think there is some
Bluetooth and NFC in there as well (WeConnect), and also CarPlay,
AndroidAuto.  I cant figure out whether there is SIM card inside, like
in Tesla. (be it software or a typical hard sim).

VW 8 might hit the road in Spring or Summer 2020.

It is not clear whether the Car2X/WLANp features are series features, or
extras to be paid for.  Other announcements in America (Caddillac was
that?) did the same, and the 11p was something additional to be sold for
a series car.

Once VW 8 is on the market, there are few places (Grenoble, Paris area,
Versailles) where I discussed with people and might be interested to
learn whether that VW 8 understands the RSUs in these areas.

VW made a similar announcement of a series car 'Arteon' in 2017 and
later in 2018 that is controlled by infrastructure (respect speed
limits); that could only be with V2X.  However, it did not materialize
once the car hit the roads.  Or at least I am not aware of that
materialization.

A discussion I had with someone who knows someone explains that a
competitor of VW (Daimler) is more interested in the cellular aspects
(e.g. LTE-V2X, even if this term itself is more of a VW term some
times), and not at all in 802.11p, which is itself not right (the right
term is 802.11-OCB).

(a final note about cellular systems with V2X capabilities: the features
of cellular systems that are specific to cars like direct V2V
connectivity, or V2V2I, were announced many times in the past for 2.5G,
3G and 4G; they were never put to market either).

Alex