Developing an autonomous car ready for the public is a huge
task that has consumed tech companies for years, with millions of miles of
on-testing that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars. It's not easy.
BMW says they could accomplish the task in about two years.
Wait, what?
On Tuesday, BMW executives said they could sell a car to the
public that would be capable of driving itself—without a steering wheel. The
only factors keeping them from selling a completely self-driving car?
Government regulations and high-resolution maps.
Klaus Froehlich, BMW Group Board of Management responsible
for product development, told Motor Authority the company would be
ready as quickly as 2021.
In other words, BMW thinks it will be able to beat Google's
Waymo self-driving car division to a wide market with its own
technology. Waymo reportedly plans to begin a self-driving car taxi service
next month.
The luxury brand says it will have the technology ready for
the production version of the Vision iNext SUV due in 2021. Silicon Valley
has continuously poured billions of dollars into the technology, and thus far,
it's only been capable of operating at slower speeds in geofenced areas. Not to
mention, only in warm and relatively dry climates. We've yet to see any
self-driving vehicle tackle a Midwestern snowstorm that blankets road markings.
As a refresher, a Level 5 self-driving car is capable
of complete autonomy without the need to hand over controls to a human driver
in any situation.
BMW jointly purchased a machine-readable map, known as
the HD Live Map from a company called HERE, back
in 2015 for $3.1 billion. But Mercedes-Benz and Audi also went in on the
purchase. Mercedes-Benz has since implemented the mapping into its self-driving
car technology. The maps are incredibly detailed and feature the ability to
update itself via cars in the network. Thus, the map knows when a lane shuts
down and can provide other warnings. It's unclear what BMW has done with its
purchase of HERE already.
The German brand has been quiet on its self-driving vehicle
progress thus far, while Waymo and General Motors have publicly boasted about
milestones and future goals. Even Mercedes-Benz plans to start a self-driving
car trial service next year. The Vision iNext SUV is slated
to debut in production form in 2021 as a technology flagship, which
means the brand likely has a lot of work to do in the next two years if it
plans to beat the front runners.
source https://www2.motorauthority.com/news/1120176_bmw-says-level-5-self-driving-car-for-public-could-happen-by-2021
by Sean Szymkowski
http://www.boscheuropean.com
No comments:
Post a Comment