BMW, Intel and Mobileye have joined hands to make fully automated cars a reality. The trio aims to produce and bring solutions for fully automated cars by 2021. The future of automated driving promises to change lives and societies for the better. But the path to get to a fully autonomous world is complex and will require end-to-end solutions that integrate intelligence across the network, from door locks to the data center.
Together with Intel and Mobileye, the BMW Group will develop the necessary solutions and innovative systems for highly and fully automated driving to bring these technologies into series production by 2021. The BMW iNEXT model will be the foundation for BMW Group’s autonomous driving strategy and set the basis for fleets of fully autonomous vehicles, not only on highways but also in urban environments for the purpose of automated ridesharing solutions.
The three companies are convinced that automated driving technologies will make travel safer and easier. The goal of the collaboration is to develop future-proofed solutions that enable drivers to not only take their hands off the steering wheel, but also reach the so called “eyes off” level and ultimately the “mind off” level. This level of autonomy would enable the vehicle, on a technical level, to achieve the final stage of traveling “driver off” without a human driver inside.
The companies have agreed to a set of deliverables and milestones to deliver fully autonomous cars based on a common reference architecture. Near term, the companies will demonstrate an autonomous test drive with a highly automated driving (HAD) prototype. In 2017 the platform will extend to fleets with extended autonomous test drives.
