► New BMW autonomous driving HQ opens
► €300m investment in new Czech centre
► Munich bets big on self-driving BMW tech
BMW autonomous driving took a step forward this week with the official launch of a new R&D centre in the Czech Republic, designed to accelerate the company’s adoption of self-driving cars.
The Future Mobility Development Centre (FMDC) in Sokolov is around three hours’ drive from company HQ in Munich and will form the centrepiece for BMW’s autonomous driving tech. A total of €300 million (£260m) has been spent to date.
It’s a major investment by BMW and the 600-hectare site is big enough to replicate every type of driving, from motorways to cross-country roads and urban environments.
BMW autonomous driving: the new self-driving R&D centre in Sokolov
BMW is installing road signs from around the world for left- and right-hand drive markets, so cameras and sensors can be tested to read instructions and road markings for all major markets.
A high-tech network of cameras and sensors make this a smart centre, with an air traffic control facility marshalling proceedings to make it run as efficiently as possible, night or day, whatever the weather.
The Sokolov site was chosen because the former mine presented a brownfield site that could be constructed with the minimum of environmental disruption. BMW claims that 2.2 million cubic metres of soil had already been excavated from mining processes, giving the facility more flexibility to be built exactly to engineers’ requirements.
Why BMW has built it
Over to BMW R&D chief Frank Weber: ‘With our new Future Mobility Development Centre, we have created a one-of-a-kind test site, designed exclusively for the highly demanding testing of automated driving and parking up to level 4. On 600 hectares of land, we test all possible driving conditions with maximum flexibility and tremendous efficiency: city, countryside, freeway, as well as automated parking.
‘The special thing: we can run our test modules one after the other without stopping. This makes our testing as realistic, reliable, and customer-oriented as possible.’
The BMW autonomous driving facility is the first of its kind in Europe and will employ more than 100 staff. Expect the facility to roll out in stages, with final completion mid-decade.
It is BMW’s fourth vehicle development centre globally, after Aschheim near Munich, Miramas in France, and Arjeplog in Sweden.