BMW, Mini celebrate unique driverless car milestone
In just four years, one million BMWs and Minis have done something not possible in over a century of car production: drive through their factories by themselves.
The BMW Group is celebrating a milestone in making its car plants more efficient, with more than one million self-driving cars having driven through the halls of its factories.
BMW first launched its “Automated Driving In-Plant” (AFW) technology as a pilot in 2022, selecting its Dingolfing plant as the first of four factories to adopt the system.
With AFW, vehicles move without a driver in specific production and logistics areas, utilising external sensors in the infrastructure, motion planning software and AI to respond to their surroundings, meaning any workers who inadvertently find themselves in the way will be detected.
The Dingolfing plant which launched the initial pilot boasts the "largest LiDAR infrastructure in Europe”, while the BMW plants in Leipzig and Regensburg plus Mini’s Oxford factories have since also adopted the technology.
According to BMW, the Mini Oxford plant is the first location to connect the car’s integrated control systems with its automated guides, requiring one fewer step in the process to increase efficiency.
Across the four plants, approximately 3500 automated vehicle movements take place daily, with the Oxford Mini plant leading the way with more than 53,000 movements in the past 12 months.
“One million vehicles moved using automated driving technology and the deployment of this technology at four sites to date demonstrates the innovative strength and scaling capabilities of our production network,” said BMW board member for production, Raymond Wittmann.
“We recognised the potential of Automated Driving In-Plant early, tested it in a pilot phase and systematically developed it to series maturity. We are now rolling out this technology worldwide,
“Automated Driving In-Plant is a prime example of how we are translating the vision of the BMW iFACTORY into industrial practice and driving the efficiency, digitalisation and intelligent connectivity across our production.”
Next up, the technology is heading to BMW’s Spartanburg factory in the US, home of production to the X3, X5, X6, X7, and XM.
