The BMW Group Autonomous Driving
Campus: the first 450 days
Six questions for Elmar Frickenstein, Senior Vice President Automated Driving and
Driver Assistance, BMW AG.
I
n September 2017, you and your team moved
to the Autonomous Driving Campus in
Unterschleissheim. What prompted the BMW
Group’s decision to create this new site?
We are currently experiencing the largest
paradigm shift in the history of the automotive
industry. The industry is set to witness more
change in the next decade than in the past 30
years. Today, we are already on the brink of highly
automated driving. There are many challenges
to overcome as we progress towards highly and
fully automated driving, the biggest of which is
surely to handle the overall complexity of the task.
To succeed, we must have the courage to change
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our way of thinking. And this is exactly what we
have done. Having the Campus as a central site
where all of the BMW Group’s autonomous driving
resources are bundled forms a fundamental
element of our all-embracing approach. Here,
we work closely interconnected also with our
technology and collaboration partners on the
development of the necessary technical solutions.
For example, software developers can immediately
test out code they have just written – in the actual
vehicle and in just a few steps. Everything is done
on a common code base. The Campus with all its
facilities was completed in record time; we moved
in just one year after receiving the go-ahead.