BMW Group announced the opening of a new development center, dedicated in working on their autonomous driving technology, in Unterschleissheim near Munich.
The German company plans to launch the iNext model in 2021 – a self-driving, all-electric and fully connected BMW.
In order to make it a reality, BMW is combining its development expertise in vehicle connectivity and automated driving at the new campus which upon completion will employ more than 2,000 people on the next steps towards fully autonomous driving, from software development to road testing.
“The road to fully-automated driving is an opportunity for Germany’s automobile manufacturing base”, says Klaus Fröhlich, member of BMW Group’s Board of Management. “The decision to develop and road-test these vehicles in the Munich area illustrates how the BMW Group and the whole region can benefit from this shift in the automotive industry.”
BMW will start bringing its experts together in Unterschleissheim from mid 2017. “In order to succeed, we are establishing new forms of collaboration under ‘project i 2.0’, with small teams of specialists for rapid response and collaboration across the company, as well as a high level of individual decision-making authority,” explains Fröhlich.
This means that the new work structures will allow software developers to take the code they have just written across the way for testing in an actual vehicle. “We are combining the advantages of a start-up, such as flexibility and speed, with those of an established company, like process security and industrialisation expertise,” adds the Development head.
BMW Group aims to start testing self-driving prototypes on public, urban roads in Munich as early as 2017.
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