BMW and Intel get together to bring autonomous driving tech by 2021

Autonomous driving is the next big thing in the ever-growing motoring advancements. Thanks to experimental efforts from brands including Volvo, Tesla and even internet giant Google, we now have cars with plenty of driving assistance to make our lives easier behind the wheel. Now though, BMW has teamed up with Intel and Mobileye to make fully self-driving vehicles a reality. 

BMW, in fact, has teamed up with Intel and Mobileye to bring fully automated driving technology into series production by 2021. TheiNEXT model will be the foundation for BMW’s autonomous driving strategy and set the basis for fleets of fully autonomous vehicles. The vehicles will not only ply on highways but also in urban environments for the purpose of automated ridesharing solutions.

The goal of the collaboration is to develop future-proofed solutions that enable the drivers to not only take their hands off the steering wheel, but reach the so called “eyes off” (level 3) and ultimately the “mind off” (level 4) level transforming the driver’s in-car time into leisure or work time. This level of autonomy would enable the vehicle, on a technical level, to achieve the final stage of travelling “driver off” (level 5) without a human driver inside.

The joint venture has already expressed its commitment to strive for an industry standard and define an open platform for autonomous driving. The common platform will address level 3 to level 5 automated driving and will be made available to multiple car vendors and other industries that could benefit from autonomous machines and deep machine learning.

The advent of autonomous driving technology means that the relationship between a driver and a car’s user interface is of crucial significance. A safe handover of control, then, is the keystone of any new trustworthy autonomous driving technology. This probably explains the painfully extensive testing that BMW is currently undertaking before it makes its fully autonomous driving tech available for general public.