For the last six odd months, BMW, Intel, and its recently acquired subsidiary Mobileye had already been working together to build self-driving vehicles. Further extending this partnership, Delphi has today been announced as the latest partner to be added to this initiative.
Under this partnership, Delphi has been added as the development partner and system integrator for building the basic self-driving technology — using the platforms already developed by existing partners. It will be providing the main compute components for the autonomous driving system and has already provided a prototype platform to the BMW Group — which if accepted will be employed in most upcoming self-driving vehicles.
Delphi is also working with existing partners, Intel and Mobileye, to work on the perception, sensor fusion, and high performance automated driving computing solutions. The tech giant is of significance for this initiative as it will help license and distribute this autonomous technology to other OEMs and automobile companies across the globe.
Speaking on its newest partner, Klaus Fröhlich, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, Development, said:
From the very beginning, we designed our cooperation on a non-exclusive platform for this technology of the future. With the onboarding of Delphi, we significantly strengthen our development of the automated driving and do a future step in spreading this technology across the industry.
The primary of this initiative is to co-jointly develop and deliver scalable autonomous driving solutions, which can be distributed to the broader OEM automotive industry and other potential industries. Announced back in July 2016, BMW Group has been working with leading chipmaker Intel for the development of highly, as well as fully automated vehicles in the coming years. It aims to drive the futuristic self-driving models into mass-production by 2021.
Delphi, on the other hand, is neither aloof to the technological development nor the ecosystem. It has already signed up the services of Intel and shown off its first autonomous vehicle, an Audi outfitted with Delphi’s hardware kit, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this year. The technology giant is now extending its partnership, adopting a more significant role in the BMW Group’s self-driving initiative.
Kevin Clark, President and CEO of Delph comments on its addition to the existing consortium as under:
This is a great opportunity for Delphi to use its technical depth and experience with automated driving and electrical architecture to help the cooperation develop and deploy at scale. Our close working relationship with all three partners serves as a solid foundation for a success.
Any and all partnerships under this initiative started by leading tech and automobile giants is completely non-exclusive. This means the technology developed by the co-operation of these giants can be distributed and made available to other industry partners. They are currently looking to onboard additional integration and development partners, much like Delphi, to support the growth of their efforts.
