BMW has already entered itself into self-driving production with plans to release an autonomous electric car by 2021. To help meet this target, the automaker is about to open a dedicated facility which aims to develop connected and automated driving technology, both hardware and software-wise, in Untershleissheim, Germany, near Munich.
The said facility is designed to start its operations in mid-2017, and shall be hosting more than 2,000 employees once it is fully operational. BMWBlog has recently learned that BMW is planning on making its upcoming I Division vehicle, codenamed Project i20, fully autonomous. This could mean either Level 4 (driver required but fully capable of most driving situations) or Level 5 (driver not needed, 100 percent able) autonomous capabilities.
Either way, BMW is aiming hard for autonomous driving and wants to focus more on it for its next I Division product. To do that, BMW will be building a new autonomous driving center for self-driving vehicles in Germany. This is similar to the idea of Tesla building a Gigafactory, but Tesla is more focused on batteries and electric powertrains.
All aspects of the development, all the way up to road tests, are planned for the new autonomous driving center, according to TechCrunch. A talent acquisition team at the location shall pool a number of different groups from around the world to bring together software engineers, machine learning specialists and more, under one roof. BMW knows that this will make it possible to streamline the development process for its vehicles, allowing engineers to make the code and then get it live on a test vehicle on location for instant trials and feedback.
Other automakers and suppliers have already taken the same steps, many of which are choosing to open engineering facilities in Silicon Valley to be closer to software development talent pools. North American car companies like GM, however, which has a few different venues for its autonomous driving center, including Detroit and Oshawa, prefer somewhere closer to home.
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