Driverless vehicles? BMW is going to dedicate half their R+D into driverless vehicles as the future of the company.
http://www.autonews.com/article/201...adical-new-future-in-world-of-driverless-cars
http://www.autonews.com/article/201...adical-new-future-in-world-of-driverless-cars
After a century building what it calls the "ultimate driving machine," BMW Group is preparing for a world in which its customers will be mere passengers, and the cars will do the driving themselves.
Days before BMW's 100th birthday, Klaus Froehlich, its board member for research and development, described plans for a completely overhauled company, where half the r&d staff will be computer programmers, competing with the likes of Google parent Alphabet to build the brains for self-driving cars.
"For me it is a core competence to have the most intelligent car," Froehlich told Reuters in an interview at the Geneva auto show...
..."In the auto industry the battle will be not for horsepower but bragging rights will be 'my car is more autonomous than your car'," said Manuela Papadopol, director, global marketing automotive for Elektrobit, a software company now owned by Continental.
BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi are each making an effort to build a hub for automotive software and services. They clubbed together to buy digital map maker HERE from Nokia last year to create a neutral platform where smart cars can share data on road and traffic conditions.
BMW's own recent hiring included a 200-strong digital innovation team in Chicago, most of whom had worked for Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone pioneer.
Among the areas Froehlich identified where BMW will still need partners is in cloud computing, the technology of storing data and software remotely and accessing it over the internet. Data gathered from a car's onboard sensors will be combined with remote information, for example about weather and traffic, using next generation mobile networks, also known as 5G.
The ultimate aim would be to build as much expertise in-house as possible, although there could be mutual benefits from working with new outside suppliers.
"The thinking here is: they too have weaknesses and there may be some win win situations," Froehlich said of potential new suppliers. "Nonetheless I need to build our own in-house competence in the next 5 to 6 years."
