Tag Archives: Autonomous driving

News

BMW’s Slow-and-Steady Approach to Self-Driving Tech Is Very On-Brand

BMW has spent decades hammering home its “ultimate driving machine” mantra, and despite the industry’s headlong rush toward autonomy, the company isn’t about to abandon that identity—or its caution. While rivals scramble to one-up each other with increasingly ambitious driver-assistance features, BMW is content to treat automation as a long-distance race rather than a drag sprint. The goal, it insists, isn’t to be first. It’s to be right.

That philosophy was on full display in a recent interview with CarExpert, where Falk Schubert, an advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) engineer working on the upcoming BMW iX3, made one thing clear: BMW will not trade safety for bragging rights. Even if a competitor launches a flashier feature first, Munich isn’t interested unless the system is fully vetted.

“We want to be safe,” Schubert said. “Because the thing is, if you go too easy on features and then have one critical accident, that is not something that BMW wants and stands for.” In other words, BMW would rather arrive late than explain why a half-baked system went wrong.

For now, the company’s focus is squarely on its Highway, or Motorway, Assistant. In the new iX3, the system allows hands-free driving at speeds of up to 81 mph (130 km/h). Before you get too comfortable, though, this is still very much a Level 2 setup. Drivers must remain attentive and ready to take over at a moment’s notice. BMW isn’t interested in pretending otherwise.

Automatic lane changes are also part of the package, but—again—BMW applies the brakes on overpromising. The system will suggest a lane change, and the driver can approve it simply by looking into the side mirror. No suggestion, no maneuver. It’s assistive, not assertive.

In urban environments, the iX3’s City Assistant takes over some of the mental load. The system can detect traffic lights, bring the vehicle to a stop at red, and pull away when the light turns green. There’s a catch, of course. If the camera beneath the rearview mirror decides you’re not paying attention, the car stays put. BMW’s internal designation for this setup is “NA5,” and it embodies the company’s broader stance: the car will help, but it won’t babysit a distracted driver.

Geographically, BMW is also rolling things out conservatively. The new Highway and City Assistants will initially launch in select European markets, including Germany, Austria, France, Italy, and several neighboring countries. The U.S. is expected to receive the technology at launch next summer, with wider availability planned later. BMW reportedly intends to keep the iX3 in production until late 2034, giving it plenty of runway to refine and expand its driver-assistance suite.

In an era where autonomy hype often outpaces reality, BMW’s approach may seem restrained—almost stubbornly so. But for a brand that still wants drivers to feel engaged rather than replaced, slow and careful might just be the most BMW move of all.

Source: CarExpert

News

Stellantis and Bolt Team Up to Put Driverless Ride-Hailing on Europe’s Streets

In a move that could accelerate Europe’s autonomous mobility race, Stellantis and Bolt have announced a new partnership aimed at deploying Level 4 driverless vehicles across the continent. It’s a pairing that blends Stellantis’ hardware muscle with Bolt’s sprawling mobility network, and if all goes according to plan, it could make robotaxis a familiar sight on European roads by the end of the decade.

A Marriage of Platform and Platform

Stellantis is bringing its AV-Ready Platforms™ to the table — specifically the eK0 medium-size van architecture and the STLA Small platform. These aren’t pie-in-the-sky concepts. They’re engineered from the chassis up for sensor integration, high-performance compute modules, and the stack of redundancies required to meet stringent European safety standards. That last part is critical: Level 4 means the vehicle must be able to operate without a human fallback under defined conditions.

Bolt, meanwhile, provides the ecosystem. The company’s app-based ride-hailing operation spans more than 50 countries, including 23 EU member states. It has the customer base, the routing intelligence, and the operational footprint to actually put autonomous fleets to work. Bolt has publicly stated a long-term goal of introducing 100,000 autonomous vehicles to its platform by 2035 — and Stellantis may serve as the hardware foundation for a portion of that fleet.

From Test Mules to Production Reality

The roadmap is ambitious but not reckless. Stellantis and Bolt expect to begin on-road trials in select European markets as early as 2026. Think limited prototypes, geofenced zones, and a healthy amount of regulatory oversight. From there, the rollout transitions to pilot fleets and, if the data looks good, industrial-scale production with an initial target set for 2029.

This phased approach isn’t just strategic — it’s essential. Europe has some of the world’s toughest safety, data protection, and cybersecurity frameworks. Both companies say they plan to work hand-in-hand with regulators to make sure the system meets or exceeds every requirement along the way.

Why It Matters

For Stellantis, this is another brick in its global driverless strategy — and a chance to expand an ecosystem of partners focused on autonomy at scale. Its AV-Ready Platforms™ are designed to be cost-effective for operators, which could help make autonomous fleets economically viable instead of merely experimental.

For Bolt, the partnership is a leap toward its futuristic fleet vision. Bolt has always leaned into efficient, shared mobility rather than solo ownership, and autonomy aligns perfectly with that ethos.

What the Leaders Are Saying

Antonio Filosa, Stellantis CEO, frames the partnership as both practical and ecological:
“Our AV-Ready Platforms™ are designed for maximum flexibility, so we can deliver the best possible experience for European customers. Autonomous fleets can also contribute to a lower carbon footprint by enabling a shared and optimized mobility, reducing congestion and emissions. Partnering with Bolt is intended to bring this vision closer to reality.”

Bolt’s founder and CEO, Markus Villig, highlights the European focus:
“This partnership brings together two companies who understand the specific dynamics of operating in Europe. By combining Stellantis’ AV-Ready Platforms™ and our operational expertise, we plan to create the best autonomous vehicle offering that is tailored for European needs, in line with European standards.”

The Stellantis–Bolt collaboration won’t put fleets of Level 4 vans on the road overnight. But it signals something equally important: the transition from autonomous R&D to autonomous deployment. With trials slated for 2026 and production targeted for 2029, Europe’s ride-hailing landscape may look dramatically different by the time Bolt’s 2035 goal rolls around.

If the partnership delivers as promised, it could mark one of the most significant steps toward everyday driverless mobility that Europe has seen yet.

Source: Stellantis

News

Stellantis Shows Off the Next Leap in Automated Driving at Hi-Drive Brussels

If you want a glimpse at the road ahead—one where your car reads the world as fluently as you do—Stellantis just offered a clear window into that future. At the Hi-Drive Final Event in Brussels, the global automaker laid out its most advanced automated-driving tech yet, and it’s aimed squarely at tackling the messy, unpredictable, very real world the rest of us drive in every day.

Hi-Drive, Europe’s flagship automation program, is built around one mission: move automated driving beyond the carefully manicured test route and into the gritty, chaotic mix of urban streets, highways, and everything in between. The project’s researchers aren’t just building smarter cars—they’re trying to prove those cars can behave reliably, safely, and intelligently in the wild.

“Hi-Drive is a great example of open innovation,” said Anne Laliron, Stellantis’s SVP of Technology Research. She emphasized that collaboration with Europe’s leading tech and research players is helping the company accelerate automated driving from lab theory to practical mobility. And at Brussels, Stellantis backed that up with metal—and a whole lot of sensors.

Two Test Cars, Two Approaches to the Future

Stellantis brought two “Living Lab” cars to demonstrate how its next-gen systems are taking shape.

Peugeot e-2008 Prototype
Sitting under a rooftop sensor stack that looks ready to map Mars, the e-2008 bristles with hardware: eight lidars, nine cameras, four radars, plus both short-range and cellular V2X communications. This isn’t gadget overload—it’s how the car builds a 360-degree view of its world. The setup is designed for dense urban environments, where automated systems must identify everything from cyclists weaving between lanes to sudden pedestrian crossings.

Maserati Levante (MY2018) Prototype
The Levante, on the other hand, focused on high-definition mapping and V2X communication. Using digital-signal messaging from infrastructure and other vehicles, it can interpret hazard alerts, react to dynamic road signage, and generally stay far more aware than any system relying on onboard sensors alone. The goal: driving that’s safer because the car knows more than what’s visible through the windshield.

Why Connectivity Is the Real Secret Sauce

If automated driving has a backbone, Stellantis believes it’s advanced connectivity. Short-range communication, 5G cellular networks, and high-speed data exchange will allow future automated vehicles—not just Stellantis’s—to feed each other traffic info, road conditions, and safety alerts.

In other words: your next car won’t just see the world. It’ll talk about it.

What Stellantis Is Doing Right Now

While Level 4 driverless vehicles are still in development, Stellantis is focusing on practical, usable tech today. That includes real-time traffic updates, driver-assist safety systems, and Level 2+ hands-free highway features—tools meant to ease the mental load rather than take over entirely.

But the company clearly has no intention of stopping there. It has two major parallel collaborations pushing toward scalable robotaxi-level autonomy:

  • NVIDIA, Uber, and Foxconn
  • Pony.ai

Both programs will run on Stellantis’s new AV-Ready Platform™, the company’s flexible architecture built to underpin a wide range of autonomous passenger and commercial vehicles.

The Big Picture

Stellantis isn’t just chasing a buzzword future of “smart mobility.” The company is investing heavily in automated driving as a long-term strategy—one that sees future cities where vehicles are cleaner, safer, more aware, and increasingly driverless.

If the tech shown in Brussels is any indication, Stellantis is betting that the next generation of mobility won’t just assist the driver… it may replace the driver altogether.

Source: Stellantis