“In order to advance autonomous driving technology, it is vital to form partnerships among automakers, technology providers and suppliers,” said FCA’s CEO Sergio Marchionne. “Joining this cooperation will enable FCA to directly benefit from the synergies and economies of scale that are possible when companies come together with a common vision and objective.”
BMW, Intel and Mobileye announced in July 2016 that they were collaborating to develop automated driving (level 3) and fully automated driving (level 4/5) systems ready for use in production by 2021. According to the partners, their cooperation remains on-track to deploy 40 autonomous test vehicles on the road by the end of 2017.
FCA will bring engineering and other technical resources and expertise to the cooperation, as well as its geographic reach and experience in North America.
Meanwhile, Intel subsidiary Mobileye is building a fleet of fully autonomous (level 4) vehicles for testing in the US, Israel and Europe. The first vehicles will be deployed later in 2017 and the fleet is expected to grow to more than 100 vehicles.
“Building cars and testing them in real-world conditions provides immediate feedback and will accelerate delivery of technologies and solutions for highly and fully autonomous vehicles,” said Amnon Shashua, Mobileye’s CEO and CTO.
