“Look ma, no hands”. This was the expression going through my mind while being chauffeured up and down a busy highway outside Munich – which may sound like a perfectly normal outing, except that Jeeves was completely electronic and this was my first taste of autonomous driving.
i-Jeeves, as I started calling him, forms part of BMW’s highly-automated driving technology, with the next and final step being fully-automated driving. The major difference being that the former allows for tasks performed by the car, over a certain period of time and in specific situations – while the latter hands complete control over to the car, with driver supervision not necessary.
RED TAPE HURDLE
The idea with highly-automated driving is to delegate some of the driving chore to the car, at the same time improving driver safety (through the active safety systems which are in charge) and efficiency levels (through time and fuel savings). But we’re years away from either becoming a reality, with government legislation just one of the many hurdles.
Highly-automated driving is not new to BMW. The carmaker’s research arm, Forschung und Technik, ran an automated car from Munich to Nuremberg in 2011. Before that it showed automated hot laps on a track following an exact racing line. It has also shown, through Emergency Stop Assistant, how a car, in traffic, can autonomously change lanes and stop safely should the driver suddenly be incapacitated.
HANDING OVER CONTROL
We’re now at a stage where the automated technology can brake, accelerate and overtake all by itself, while reading traffic situations and adhering to road rules and speed limits. It can even negotiate changes between motorways at intersections.
And it’s fascinating to watch it in action. The 5 Series test mule we sampled looks perfectly normal from the outside, but in the cabin has been kitted with high-tech sensors and cameras to make the complicated task possible.
The result is a surprisingly fluid execution. It’s smooth with no sudden movements, and is conservative in its approach to lane changes, acceleration and braking. It picks up all vehicle movements and objects around it and processes the information – almost like a virtual chess game.
Highly-automated driving falls under BMW’s Connected Drive banner, and we got to see some other technologies which will be filtering into BMWs in the near future, centred mainly around online information and entertainment.
COOL SERVICES COMING
Future buyers can expect the option of an integrated simcard, which will allow you to subscribe to various services via the new Connected Drive Store, which can be found within the iDrive system.
And there are some cool services. The concierge service connected us to a call centre, with the operator willing to do anything from booking our dinner reservation to sending a satnav-ready map directly to the car.
You can subscribe to Real Time Traffic, which will divert you when the highway gets gridlocked; the Internet access service will sort all your browsing needs; Online Entertainment lets you download songs (up to 10 000 to the car’s hard drive) or run themed music channels; and the Intelligent Emergency Call system will detect an accident and your location, sending alerts for assistance.
Most of these technologies (autonomous driving aside) are being launched in Europe as you read this, with BMW SA targeting July 2014 for local introduction. -Star Motoring