BMW Group’s New Research Center for Autonomous Driving

BMW’s release of its much anticipated autonomous electric car in 2021 made them build a dedicated facility which aims at developing connected and automated driving located in Unterschleissheim, Germany.

Upon the completion of the facility, it will be filled of more than 2,000 employees comprised of different software engineers and machine learning specialists working all together to achieve BMW's goal of fully-automated driving. All aspects of development, from software engineering to road tests, are planned for the facility.

At the event, BMW AG’s board of Management Klaus Fröhlich said, “The road to fully-automated driving is an opportunity for Germany’s automobile manufacturing base. The decision to develop and road-test these vehicles in the Munich area illustrates how the BMW Group and the whole region can benefit from this shift in the automotive industry.”

This research facility in Germany is the second office to focus on automated driving development; behind BMW’s Mountain View, California office. Now, both facilities will have cars on the road and in simulators.

BMW’s three test cars in the United States gather data while driving and help the company work on edge-case scenarios. At the end of 2018, there will be additional 40 automobiles in the US, and a total of 80 worldwide, driving around countries including China, Germany, and Israel.

The company will also use simulations to train their autonomous program. According to Thomas Bachman, the head of autonomous driving test validation and integration, the core of the system was built by BMW with several technologies sourced from other companies. Bachman referred to them as bricks of a house that is still unmistakably BMW's.

The facility is still under construction, but the main building and workshop are now working. A small track is also under development, but it will be used for vehicles’ test calibration, according to Bachman.

The BMW iNext is scheduled for release in 2021 and it would be the first self-driving, electric, and fully connected car created by BMW.

BMW Increases Spending for Autonomous Cars

BMW increase its research and development spending by up to 7 billion euros ($8.6 billion) as it focuses on bringing a total of 25 electrical models by 2025.

Despite higher spending, BMW said that it expects pretax profit to be over 10 billion euros ($12,379,500,000) this year. Last year, its spending on developing electric and autonomous cars reached 6.1 billion euros ($7,551,495,000 billion).

Last month, BMW reported a 5.3 percent profit rise on surging demand for high-margin SUVs, helping to offset higher research spending. Sales of luxury cars are expected to rise continuously, getting a new record of sales this year.

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