(Beijing) “Future Mobility, Hello!” BMW Group held the 2019 China Innovation Day in Beijing, joining hands with China Unicom, Tencent and NavInfo to look forward to safer, cleaner, more relaxing and enjoyable future mobility. After recently announcing the cooperation with China Unicom and NavInfo on 5G mobile communication and high-precision map respectively, BMW Group signed a contract with Tencent on the day of the event to jointly establish BMW Group’s “high-performance data-driven development platform” in China. With the implementation of BMW’s “data-driven R&D” strategy in China. The continuous signing of three major technology companies in China shows that BMW Group is promoting the research and development of autonomous driving and helping China’s smart city construction. The mass-produced BMW iNEXT in 2021 will provide L3 autonomous driving functions, and plans to launch L4 autonomous driving fleet tests in major global markets including China.
Mr. Goller, President and CEO of BMW Group Greater China, said: “The Chinese government encourages and supports innovation, young Chinese customers are full of enthusiasm for new technologies, and China has many world-class high-tech companies, which makes us firmly believe that China We are already at the forefront of shaping the future of mobility, and we are firmly integrating the BMW Group’s R&D concepts and technical expertise into China’s grand goal of building smart transportation and smart cities, and working with Chinese partners to lead the trend of future mobility.”
In the historical process of the transformation of personal travel to ACES “new four modernizations”, the BMW Group not only leads innovation with forward-looking thinking, but also advocates and promotes open cooperation. Based on the high emphasis on leading the consumption trend and future travel trend in the Chinese market, the BMW Group continued to promote the implementation of the “2+4” China strategy. The core businesses of the two major brands of BMW and MINI maintained high-quality growth, and achieved “new four modernizations” in ACES. solid results in the field.
BMW Group’s future mobility vision: safer, cleaner, easier and more enjoyable
Autonomous driving will bring about major changes in the automotive industry. As a pioneer leading the transformation of travel, the BMW Group conducted the track demonstration of highly autonomous vehicles for the first time as early as 2006. At the just-concluded BMW Group Future Summit, it demonstrated the “on-demand travel” of unmanned vehicles picking up users. “Application scenario. While investing in systematic and forward-looking research and development, the BMW Group continues to introduce phased mature technologies to the market. New cars such as the new BMW 3 Series, new BMW 7 Series, new BMW X5 and innovative BMW X7 all provide L2 autonomous driving. BMW’s first driver attention monitoring system allows users to “free their hands” under certain conditions.
Environmental perception, path planning and motion control are the key technologies towards highly autonomous driving and fully autonomous driving, and are also the research and development focus of the BMW Group, and motion control is BMW’s unique expertise. Based on more than 10 years of exploration and practice, the BMW Group has become a leader in the development of L3 and L4 autonomous driving. For example, the sensor concept and vehicle architecture have been determined and related verifications have been completed, and progress has been made in key technical fields.
In 2021, when BMW iNEXT is mass-produced, it will provide customers with L3 autonomous driving in accordance with legal regulations and technically support L4 autonomous driving. It will also apply the fifth-generation BMW eDrive electric drive technology, with a cruising range of 600 kilometers. It will also support the full interconnection of 5G networks and bring a new design concept. The BMW Group announced that after the mass production of this intelligent connected car, it will carry out L4 autonomous driving fleet tests in major markets including China.
BMW believes that autonomous driving will help reduce traffic accidents and reduce congestion, making it possible for more on-board entertainment. The BMW Group also believes that the driver will always have the priority to take over the vehicle. Autonomous driving will not make driving fun disappear, but will give it more meaning. In 2016, the BMW VISION NEXT 100 concept car already demonstrated this vision: future BMW customers can independently choose the relaxing and enjoyable “Ease” (Ease) automatic driving mode, or the autonomously controlled “Boost” (Boost) active driving mode. Driving mode, the driver will become the “ultimate driver”.
“Data-driven R&D”, BMW Group guarantees the safety and reliability of autonomous driving with efficient and rigorous R&D
There are hundreds of millions of vehicles on the road every day in the world, and the real traffic scene is extremely complex. Therefore, the BMW Group always puts safety at the top of the research and development of autonomous driving, adopts the “data-driven research and development” strategy, and with huge investment and rigorous attitude towards autonomous driving research and development.
In 2017, the BMW Group began large-scale L4 self-driving vehicle testing, and is currently investing 80 BMW 7 Series vehicles around the world for L4 real-road testing. Before launching the BMW iNEXT mass production vehicle, the BMW Group will conduct 5 million kilometers of actual road tests and 240 million kilometers of computer simulation tests, covering as many traffic scenarios as possible. Testing is done in a rigorous round-robin approach—when any new or optimized feature is tested, other features that have already been validated are also re-validated to ensure vehicle safety and reliability.
Recently, the BMW Group and ten partners including Baidu released the cross-industry white paper “Safety First in Autonomous Driving” to promote the cross-industry standardization of driver assistance systems and autonomous driving technologies, which once again proved the BMW Group’s safety-first philosophy and Drive cross-industry standardization efforts.
In April 2018, the BMW Group established a dedicated “autonomous driving research and development center” in Munich, Germany, which can accommodate about 1,800 employees. The BMW Group has also adopted an unconventional R&D organizational structure and agile development methods. Special operations team-style “functional teams” can independently or collaboratively complete the development, verification, and delivery of specified functions. The innovative working mode reduces the complexity of planning and coordination, and improves the efficiency of research and development.
China has the most typical complex traffic scenes in the world, so the BMW Group’s autonomous driving research and development in China has become an important part of global research and development. BMW Group’s autonomous driving R&D teams in Beijing and Shanghai have nearly 100 R&D personnel, who focus on the development and verification of autonomous driving functions based on typical traffic scenarios in China.
Actively promote open cooperation and work with Chinese partners to develop autonomous driving technologies and products that meet the local market
The BMW Group has always promoted cross-industry cooperation with an open attitude. In 2016, the BMW Group formed a strategic partnership with Intel and Mobileye. More than a dozen companies have joined the open platform jointly created, including the core force driving the research and development of autonomous driving-vehicle manufacturers, large suppliers, and automotive chips, Technology companies in fields such as high-precision maps have jointly accelerated the research and development process and jointly promoted the implementation of autonomous driving.
China is the pioneer market for the BMW Group to promote future mobility. At present, the R&D centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenyang have all been upgraded, forming the largest R&D network outside Germany, covering new energy vehicles, autonomous driving, intelligent interconnection, digital services and design, etc. cutting edge field. At the same time, the BMW Group has launched extensive cooperation with Chinese government agencies, universities and technology companies.
At the Innovation Day event, three partners, China Unicom, Tencent and NavInfo, attended together, representing three key areas closely related to autonomous driving. The BMW Group and China Unicom have reached a 5G mobile communication business cooperation, paving the way for BMW products to enter the 5G era smoothly. The BMW Group and Tencent signed a contract on the same day, and the two parties will cooperate to build a “high-performance data-driven development platform” within 2019. Based on this platform, BMW will develop autonomous driving technologies and products that are more in line with the local market based on China’s actual needs. High-precision maps are one of the core technologies of autonomous driving. NavInfo is a leading location service provider in China and a long-term partner of BMW in China.
Under the “2+4” China strategic deployment, the BMW Group is also making solid progress in areas other than autonomous driving. For example, within this year, BMW will become the first car brand to integrate “Tmall Genie” into the vehicle system. In 2020, it will produce pure electric BMW iX3 in Shenyang, China for the world. Relying on its full understanding of the strategic position of the Chinese market and its long-term commitment, the BMW Group is working with China to lead the tide of future mobility with clear strategic deployment and solid footprints, fulfilling its promise of “in China, for China, and for the world”.
