FCA collaborates with BMW and Intel for autonomous cars

The cooperation will allow the companies to leverage each other’s individual strengths, capabilities and resources.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) has joined hands with BMW, Intel and Mobileye - to collectively work towards developing self-driving vehicles.

Through the signed memorandum of understanding, the companies intend to leverage each other’s individual strengths, capabilities and resources to enhance the platform’s technology, increase development efficiency and reduce time to market.

One enabler to achieve this will be the co-location of engineers in Germany as well as other locations. FCA will bring engineering and other technical resources and expertise to the cooperation, as well as its significant sales volumes, geographic reach and long-time experience in North America.

In July 2016, BMW, Intel, and Mobileye announced that they were joining forces to make self-driving vehicles a reality by collaborating to bring solutions for Level 3 and Level 4 automated driving into production by 2021. Since then, they have been designing and developing a scalable architecture that can be used by multiple automakers around the world, while at the same time maintaining each automaker’s unique brand identities.

Through this cooperation, the companies aim to deploy 40 autonomous test vehicles on the road by end 2017. It also expects to benefit from leveraging data and learnings from the recently announced 100 Level 4 test vehicle fleet of Mobileye.

Sergio Marchionne, CEO, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said, “In order to advance autonomous driving technology, it is vital to form partnerships among automakers, technology providers and suppliers. 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.”

This news comes only weeks after FCA announced that it will begin electrifying every vehicle from its flagship Italian brand – Maserati, by 2019. Then, by 2022, the company hopes that more than 50 per cent of vehicles across its various brands will use some form of electronic tech under the skin.