Report: BMW Plans Self-Driving Car by 2021
CARS.COM — Another day, another automaker throwing down the self-driving car gauntlet. Elmar Frickenstein, BMW’s senior vice president for autonomous driving, said the automaker will have a fully self-driving car in 2021, according to Reuters. Speaking in Berlin today, Frickenstein reportedly said BMW is on its way to delivering a car capable of Level 3, Level 4 and Level 5 autonomy in the next four years.
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That’s apparent reference to the SAE International’s classification of self-driving cars, which goes from Level 0 through Level 5. In SAE-speak, Level 3 means the car can fully drive on its own but may still need you to be able to take over if the system detects conditions outside its capabilities. Level 4 and Level 5 cars, by contrast, can fully drive without human intervention — Level 4 in certain cases and Level 5 in all cases.
SAE officials told us in 2016 that it considered current systems like Tesla’s Autopilot to still be Level 2, meaning they operate some but not all driving functions. At the time, no current production vehicles had yet reached Level 3, SAE said. Audi hopes to be the first with the next-generation A8 flagship sedan later this year. By the looks of it, BMW won’t be far behind.
Editor’s note: As of Oct. 3, 2016, NHTSA no longer uses this classification system, instead adopting SAE International’s standard. Read more here.
