BMW AG will dispatch a fleet of
autonomous vehicles to U.S. and
European cities in this year’s second
half, the next step in its partnership
with Mobileye NV and Intel Corp. to
introduce fully self-driving vehicles by
2021.
The German automaker will put 40 of
its 7 Series sedans on the road and
train them to drive in urban areas,
Klaus Froehlich, BMW’s head of
development, said in an interview.
The goal is to apply the gathered data
toward producing the iNext, which will
supplant the 7 Series as the BMW
brand’s flagship model and be capable
of full autonomy four years from now.
Automakers and technology companies
are rushing to form partnerships to
compete against the likes of Alphabet
Inc.’s Google, which has clocked 2
million self-driving miles on public
roads, and Tesla Motors Inc., with 1.3
billion miles of data from Autopilot-
equipped vehicles. BMW is appealing
to other carmakers to adopt its
approach to help shoulder research
costs, speed development by sharing
data and ensure they don’t become
also-rans.
“Those who reach the finish line
before you will have their tech become
the basis of standardization,” Amnon
Shashua, Mobileye’s co-founder and
chief technology officer, said in an
interview. “This is why sharing is
important.”
BMW will be following Uber
Technologies Inc. and Volvo Cars in
putting autonomous cars on the road,
with the latter two companies
partnering on test vehicles in
Pittsburgh and Arizona. Other
carmakers have been reluctant so far
to heed BMW’s call for adopting its
platform. Rival Daimler AG has said it
prefers to develop its own technology.
Mobileye shares rose as much as 4.4
percent to the highest intraday in
three months and traded at $42.12 as
of 1:12 p.m. in New York.



http://m.guardian.ng/technology/bmw-deploying-self-driving-7-series-fleet-to-roads-this-year/

If BMW never experience bad market make them bring the car to Nigeria.
We go teach them say the car can be used for automated robbery, et al