"Google and VW partner on quantum computing to improve electric car batteries"

Volkswagen is spending a lot of money on their futurecar projects. More on that later today.
From 9to5 Google, Nov. 7:

Volkswagen has been heavily investing in batteries in order to support its planned ramp-up of electric vehicle production starting next year.

Their efforts have so far been focused on actual battery production and securing the rarer raw materials needed, like cobalt, but they are also exploring more future-oriented options to improve batteries at the technological level.

Today, VW is announcing a partnership with Google to use quantum computers to improve electric car batteries and others parts of the future of transportation, like traffic optimization and new machine learning processes.

Quantum computing is still very much in its infancy, but Google has been an early leader in the field and earlier this year, it started offering AI researchers quantum computer access to drive application development.

Artificial intelligence and quantum computing are both seen as having a lot of potential to solve difficult problems in material science and help create new materials to optimize existing technologies, like batteries.

Earlier this year, Toyota announced a similar initiative to work on the next generation of batteries for electric cars.

Now it looks like VW is trying to do the same by securing this new partnership with Google.
Martin Hofmann, Chief Information Officer of the Volkswagen Group, commented on the partnership:

“Quantum computing technology opens up new dimensions and represents the fast-track for future-oriented topics. We at Volkswagen want to be among the first to use quantum computing for corporate processes as soon as this technology is commercially available. Thanks to our cooperation with Google, we have taken a major step towards this goal.”

The companies say that they will focus on research for “practical applications” and that specialists from the Volkswagen Information Technology Centers (IT labs) in San Francisco and Munich will “develop algorithms, simulations and optimizations together with the Google experts.”...MORE

Here's the Volkswagen U.S. press release:
VOLKSWAGEN GROUP AND GOOGLE WORK TOGETHER ON QUANTUM COMPUTERS

Related:
Volkswagen Using D-Wave Quantum Computer To Fight Beijing Traffic (plus the VW Level 5 autonomous vehicle)
Porsche [which produces cars profitability] admits EV investment to take on Tesla is an “enormous burden” (PAH3; TSLA)
Volkswagen To Invest Up To 10 Billion Euros In New Battery Factory