Intel, BMW, Former Tesla Partner Mobileye, Plan 40 Autonomous Test Vehicles By Late 2017

It’s been six months since German automaker BMW, U.S. technology giant Intel and Israeli computer vision systems company Mobileye came together to collaborate on self-driving cars, and the partnership seems to finally be bearing fruit. During a joint press conference at the ongoing Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the companies announced they will start testing autonomous vehicles later this year.

“A fleet of approximately 40 autonomous BMW vehicles will be on the roads by the second half of 2017, demonstrating the significant advancements made by the three companies towards fully autonomous driving,” the companies said in a joint statement.

The vehicles will be BMW 7 series cars, and the trials will take place in the U.S. as well as in Europe.

“This year our fleet of vehicles will already test this joint technology globally under real traffic conditions. This is a significant step towards the introduction of the BMW iNEXT in 2021, which will be the BMW Group’s first fully autonomous vehicle,” Klaus Fröhlich of BMW said in the statement.

The companies’ partnership may not be limited to just the BMW autonomous cars, however. In the announcement, they also said they have “developed a scalable architecture that can be adopted by other automotive developers and carmakers to pursue state of the art designs and create differentiated brands. The offerings scale from individual key integrated modules to a complete end-to-end solution providing a wide range of differentiated consumer experiences.”

If their own tests show promising results, the architecture could become a viable revenue model.

Apart from self-driving technology, BMW is also increasing its focus on electric vehicles. It plans to give its i3 electric car a design update and longer range sometime this year.

Both Intel and Mobileye have been very busy in the autonomous driving sector, having formed another partnership with British automotive parts maker Delphi Automotive for the development of a high-end self-driving solution.

Mobileye was also Tesla Motors’ technology partner, but the two companies had a public and somewhat bitter falling out in July last year, with allegations of wrongdoing from both sides.