Global driverless vehicle platform the aim of partnership

A world-leading autonomous driving platform for global deployment will be developed by a partnership among BMW Group, Intel and Mobileye and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA).

They’ve all signed a memorandum of understanding so they can leverage each other’s strengths, capabilities and resources to that end, aimed at reducing the time to market.
The platform will be scalable for Level 3 to Level 4/5 automated driving and can be used by multiple automakers around the world while maintaining their brand identities.

Co-location of engineers in Germany, as well as other places, will help provide this.

FCA will bring engineering and other technical resources and expertise to the cooperation, as well as its significant sales volumes, geographic reach and long-time experience in North America.

“To advance autonomous driving technology it is vital to form partnerships among automakers, technology providers and suppliers,” FCA chief executive officer Sergio Marchionne says.

“Joining this cooperation will enable FCA to directly benefit from the synergies and economies of scale that are possible when companies come together with a common vision and objective.”

In July 2016, BMW Group, Intel, and Mobileye announced that they were joining forces to make self-driving vehicles a reality by collaborating to bring solutions for highly automated driving (Level 3) and fully automated driving (Level 4/5) into production by 2021.

Since then, they have been designing and developing a scalable architecture that can be used by multiple automakers around the world, while at the same time maintaining each automaker’s brand identities.

The co-operation remains on-track to deploy 40 autonomous test vehicles on the road by the end of this year. It also expects to benefit from leveraging data and learnings from the recently announced 100 Level 4 test vehicle fleet of Mobileye, an Intel company, demonstrating the scale effect of this collaborative approach.

BMW Group, Intel, Mobileye and FCA, together with the recently announced development partners and system integrators, invite additional automakers and technology suppliers to join them in adopting this autonomous driving platform to create an industry-wide solution.