Volkswagen Group Sedric Concept First Look: Up!sized Autonomobile

The name stands for SElf-DRIving-Car, and the MEB-based (modular electric toolkit) monobox concept is the first to be conceived by the parent company, not one of its many constituent brands. As such it serves as a cross-brand ideas platform (though we’re not seeing much of anything contributed by or useful to Bugatti, Bentley, Lambo, or Ducati). Its lofty stated goal is to provide innovative, sustainable, and safe mobility for all—accessible at the touch of a single button. Pressing said button hails the car, after which a ring around the button illuminates in successive segments to convey Sedric’s estimated arrival time. A getting-warmer/getting-colder vibration mode can help visually impaired users find the vehicle. Once aboard you simply tell it where you want to go, then legions of 360-degree lidar, radar, and ultrasonic sensors plus highly detailed digital maps go to work plotting and executing your route swiftly and silently in full Level 5 autonomous comfort and safety.

VW Group invested in mobility services provider Gett in May and recently established the mobility service provider MOIA, all of which plays into the Group’s “Together 2025” strategy of becoming a global leader in sustainable mobility (and possibly atoning for Dieselgate). Conceived to be “part of the family,” it can also easily be shared with the community. It’ll drop the kids off at school, pick up internet-ordered shopping, park itself, and charge itself, all automatically.

Users can talk with Sedric and discuss routing, traffic, etc. Then they can settle back and watch entertainment on the windshield, which is also an OLED display screen. It even features houseplants on the rear package tray area to aspirate fresh air for occupants. Being based on MEB, it can be outfitted with battery packs of between 49 and 100 kW-hrs.

You’ll never see Sedric on the road, but his children and grandchildren, begot by the various brands that are in the business of building and selling cars, are likely to start arriving in showrooms after 2025. We say bake all this capability into the microbus-inspired MEB-based ID Buzz concept, and VW might be onto something.

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