Daimler and BMW Join Forces to Develop Automated Driving Technology

German carmakers, Daimler and BMW, have announced a partnership to co-develop autonomous driving technology, Reuters reported. The announcement was made public on Thursday.

The move by the two companies comes when both face headwinds from international trade deadlocks and narrowing margins. It is learnt from the report that around 1,200 developers will carry out the new development.

According to Tech Crunch reports, both the companies will work on the development of automated driving on highways and parking, assisted-driver systems, along with levels of automation all the way up to SAE Level 4-fully autonomous driving without human intervention. The technologies will be implemented separately by BMW and Daimler on their vehicles.

Earlier, in February this year, both the companies unveiled their plans to develop automated driving technologies, citing a possibility of extending their partnership. On Thursday, the agreement for the joint venture was finalized by the automakers; with the possible target year for the mass deployment of the technology being 2024.

Daimler is currently focusing independently on deploying its first Level 4/Level 5 autonomous vehicle testing programs in an urban environment. Bosch is helping the company to carry out the development; which is expected to become operational this year itself. On the other hand, BMW is focusing to push its automated driving to the next level together with its iNext lines of vehicles.