BMW announces arrival of their fully autonomous car in 2021

BMW has announced that their first fully self-driving car will hit the market in the year 2021. Elmar Frickenstein, senior vice president for autonomous driving, revealed that their autonomous car would be capable of Level 3, 4, and 5 autonomy.

It sure looks like development of this technology for their vehicles is going as per their plans. In 2016, BMW partnered with Intel and Mobileye to develop technologies that will be used by self-driving vehicles. Based on this, BMW is known to have showcased an autonomous 5 Series prototype at the 2017 CES in January, which is a tech tradeshow.

BMW says that drivers will not only take their hands off the steering wheel at Level 3 of autonomy, they can also keep their eyes off the road. Furthermore, Level 4 is where the driver can take their mind off the driving process, and at Level 5, there will be no need for a human inside the car as all functions will be processed by the on-board system. 

Now, going by these events, BMW may want to rethink their ‘ultimate driving machine’ or ‘sheer driving pleasure’ taglines as their cars may turn out to be ultimate passenger machines in the near future. Food for thought?