BMW and the Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler have joined forces to develop autonomous vehicles.
This isn’t the first time high-profile automakers have decided to work together on self-driving technology. Ford is working with the Volkswagen automotive group, and GM and Honda are playing nice together as well.
All of these companies are looking to work with another legacy automaker to help share the cost and the information needed to develop SAE level three, four and five autonomous technology for cars.
BMW’s press release mentions that the companies hope to have this technology ready by the mid-2020s, which puts the timeline anywhere between six and maybe eight years away.
“As we continue to pursue our strategy, we are combining the expertise of two technology leaders, said Klaus Fröhlich a member of the BMW auto group’s board of management.
These two German automakers working together makes sense since they’re both German companies that typically build higher-end vehicles.
The automakers are already developing their own self-driving technology. BMW has been working on its tech since 2006, and it now has 70 test vehicles using what it describes as state-of-the-art technology.
Daimler is working on SAE levels three, four and five self-driving and it plans to launch tests in Silicon Valley with Bosch sometime in 2019.
Either way, it’s reassuring that the two companies are working together since legacy automakers seem like they might be trailing behind tech companies like Waymo and Uber when it comes to self-driving technology.
