Autonomous vehicles are the talk of the town lately, with eager tech bloggers and journalists looking to cover every new advancement, large or small. And while many drivers are hesitant about turning over the keys to the car itself, a growing number are waiting on the edge of their seats for the dawn of the self-driving car age.
Wherever the future is headed, you can be sure that BMW will be there to meet it. With the company’s focus on innovation, it was little surprise when they announced their plan to produce a fully autonomous vehicle by 2021 for use in ridesharing programs. Together with Intel and Mobileye, BMW plans to standardize self-driving technology. According to Ziv Aviram, co-founder and CEO of Mobileye, “It is the only way to make this crucial next step a reality.”
Mobileye will play an important role in BMW’s plans. Knowing where to go is key for autonomous vehicles, which is why most other players in the field use LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) equipment to record and map everything around them. Once a self-driving car has detailed maps, it can dedicate more processing power to addressing items and people on the road in real time. Mobileye is one of the few companies to seek an alternative to the costly LIDAR equipment, instead relying on artificial intelligence. Mobileye’s cameras and systems process information about their surroundings using machine learning, making complex driving decisions almost instantaneously, much like human drivers.
While we’re excited to see where the future takes us here at Fields BMW of Daytona, we’re having too much fun driving our own BMW vehicles at the moment to give it up. If you want to get in on the fun, head over to our dealership near Palm Coast, Florida to check out our new BMW vehicles for sale and our certified pre-owned BMW inventory.