It’s been a century that BMW, the German automaker is building the ultimate driving machines. Now the company wants to meet the future, where its customers will only be the passenger and the car will do the driving itself. Nothing to be surprised about as Google, Apple, and Tesla, all are working on their own autonomous car projects. So, the company doesn’t want to stick only to its high-tech futuristic helmet. Days before its 100th birthday, company’s R&D board member unveiled plans for a completely reshaped company, with half of the R&D staff as computer programmers.
“For me it is a core competence to have the most intelligent car,” said Klaus Froehlich in an interview with Reuters at the Geneva auto show. “Our task is to preserve our business model without surrendering it to an internet player. Otherwise we will end up as the Foxconn for a company like Apple, delivering only the metal bodies for them.”
BMW needs to strike deals with a new network of suppliers, most of them should be from outside the traditional automotive industry. Only 20 percent of its 30,000 employees are software engineers, which means contractors and suppliers’ staff are working on research and development for BMW.
“We have some catching up to do in the area of machine learning and artificial intelligence,” Froehlich said. “If I need to get to a ratio of 50:50 within five years, I need to get manpower equivalent to another 15,000 to 20,000 people from partnerships with suppliers and elsewhere.” He also mentioned that schools in Germany are not producing sufficient tech engineers for BMW.
In that case, BMW is looking to outward partnerships to fill the gaps, including working with cloud computing and storage outfits to help conduct its autonomous vehicle initiative. Also the company is planning to license out its drivetrains for electric and hybrid vehicles, technology made by its own engineers. It’s a great move to reimburse those heavy R&D costs.
