BMW teams up with Intel, Mobileye to develop self-driving cars

Race to design the perfect self-driving car is heating up with recent crash being a setback for Tesla

Ever since Elon Musk and Tesla appeared on the scene with the Model S and its autopilot feature, self-driving cars have become a major field of development attracting all automakers and tech giants including Apple and Google. As such, German automobile giant BMW has also announced that it is teaming up with US Computer Chip firm Intel and an Israeli technology company Mobileye to develop self-driving cars. The three companies “are collaborating to bring solutions for highly and fully automated driving into series production by 2021”, they said in a joint statement.



The partners announced that their goal was to create automated self-driving cars, which will make travel easier and safer. They went on to say how the car driving it with the passenger on the steering wheel supervising was not enough. Further, the three said they want to create a car that would allow passengers to completely take their mind off the road, adding that the ultimate goal is to reach “driver off” stage, where the car would work without a person inside.



The announcement comes on the heel of the incident where a driver was killed in a fatal crash while using his Tesla Model S on “autopilot” mode in Florida, raising concerns over Beta testing cars on the road, as well as the safety of self-driving cars.

The driver, identified as Joshua Brow, was killed as his car drove into the trailer of an 18 wheeler while the car was on autopilot.

US Highways authorities have opened a "preliminary evaluation" into the autopilot feature after the Tesla Model S incident.



The race to design the perfect self-driving car is heating up with the crash being a setback for Tesla.

Tesla would want to fix all bugs in its “autopilot” self-driving mechanism system quickly, because with BMW and Intel working together, it won’t be long before they have a quality vehicle available for purchase.

Partnership with the world’s leading producer of computer chips Intel and Mobileye, a company which describes itself as the “global leader in the development of computer vision and machine learning, data analysis, localization and mapping for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving, could give BMW the edge in this race.

This article was originally published on the guardian