Why BMW is not hurrying with its autonomous driving
technology?

Angelica Andrew
Aug 25, 2017 · 2 min read

It may be startling for some BMW drivers not to see the company coming up as actively as other companies with their autonomous driving technology. But according to BMW, they have a real reason.

Apart from BMW’s 7 series auto-parking — there isn’t much that you see autonomous with the tech-savvy BMWs. Well, there is a good reason for that, and you will acquiesce quite comfortably too, just like we did.

Unlike Tesla, who have throttled up their self-driving/Autopilot Suite systems on real roads, BMW will wait till they are 100 percent accurate. Harald Kruger, BMW’s Chief Executive told Handelsblatt:

“We can offer automated driving on the motorway up to 120 kilometres per hour, but the technology must be 100 percent reliable.”

Kruger has some real concerns with the autonomous tech industry’s app style approach.

In the app industry, you can launch products on the market that are 70 to 80 percent ready and then complete their development with the customer, that is absolutely impossible with safety features in a car.” Said Kruger.

You can check the “crazy” things that Tesla Model S owners are doing with their Autopilot software 7.0. Company’s founder, Elon Musk said that they need to add some restraints to their system. It just tells us that BMW, someway, is believing in the right thing that needs to be done with the autonomous technology.

BMW plans to take one step at a time. The next thing that we will see in their semi-autonomous cars would be driver-less auto-parking, escalating eventually towards a full-autonomous cars.

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