BMWs self-driving cars heading to China

The luxury and executive car maker is taking its autonomous driving technology to the streets of Beijing and Shanghai in the hopes of developing its features for Chinese drivers.

The company's self-driving cars have already clocked up thousands of kilometres on European roads -- they've even autonomously conquered the Nurburgring, the world's most challenging racetrack. But now, after five years of research, development and testing on its home turf, BMW is partnering with Baidu -- China's largest search engine -- to start testing autonomous driving technology on Chinese freeways too.

Over the next two years BMW will be trying to understand the technological challenges that need to be overcome to make self-driving cars a reality for the world's biggest car market. For example, a feature that is currently unique to Chinese road infrastructure is the multi-storey freeway. The company plans to build specific prototype vehicles for developing the solutions to these problems and will use Baidu's mapping and cloud expertise to help guide them and keep them connected.

Like most realistic car companies, BMW sees the immediate future of autonomous driving technology as a means of offering an automated co-pilot for taking the strain in specific driving situations -- such as in heavy traffic or when the driver is taken ill and is no longer able to control a vehicle.

However, even in these very specific circumstances, a self-driving car would still need to be as capable, connected and aware as a human driver to be able to cope with the traffic conditions.

Despite the very gradual approach that most car companies are taking with developing self-driving cars, Audi, Tesla and Nissan have all pledged to bring the next generation of autonomous driving technology to market before the end of the decade.—AFP/RelaxNews 2014