10:31 am, August 17, 2017
BMW GROUP and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles have formed an alliance, along with technology company Intel and advanced driver assistance systems company Mobileye, to develop self-driving vehicles.
The four companies signed a memorandum of understanding in order to allow them to work together on a new ‘world-leading, state-of-the-art autonomous driving platform’.
Under the arrangement, each organisation will be able to ‘leverage each other’s individual strengths, capabilities and resources’.
The aim is to start production of vehicles with Level 3 (highly automated driving) and Level 4/5 (fully automated driving) autonomous capabilities by 2021.
The companies are planning to have 40 autonomous test vehicles on the road by the end of 2017. They also expect to benefit from data received from Mobileye’s 100 Level 4 fully autonomous test vehicles.
Harald Krüger, chairman of the board of management of BMW AG, said: ‘The two factors that remain key to the success of the cooperation are uncompromising excellence in development, and the scalability of our autonomous driving platform.
‘With FCA as our new partner, we reinforce our path to successfully create the most relevant state-of-the-art, cross-OEM Level 3-5 solution on a global scale.’
Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel, said: ‘The future of transportation relies on auto and tech industry leaders working together to develop a scalable architecture that automakers around the globe can adopt and customise.
‘We’re thrilled to welcome FCA’s contribution, bringing us a step closer to delivering the world’s safest autonomous vehicles.’
Professor Amnon Shashua, CEO and CTO of Mobileye, said: ‘We welcome FCA’s contributions and use of the cooperation’s platform, which has made substantial progress over the last year and is rapidly entering the testing and execution phase.
‘The combination of vision-intense perception and mapping, differentiated sensor fusion, and driving policy solutions offers the highest levels of safety and versatility, in a cost-efficient package that will scale across all geographies and road settings.’
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