BMW Takes Its Self-Driving Car To The Limit

BMW were out to prove a point at this year’s CES. The point being that self-driving systems will not be ready until they are able to handle every type of road situation and condition.

The company was conducting autonomous driving demos at the event in Las Vegas, taking the cars to the absolute limit around a road track at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The cars were guided only by their own high-res GPS, as well as all the sensors you would expect to find on a self-drving car.

To make things a little more interesting the asphalt was sprayed with water. BMW want to show that under normal driving conditions, a self-drving car will need to be able to handle things like emergency maneuvers, extreme turns and bad weather conditions. Of course its cars were programmed specifically to navigate the track but it does give the idea that manufacturers need to produce practical and safe self-driving cars.

You can see why BMW, as well as all the other automakers, believe that automated cars are still a long way off, with Werner Huber from BMW’s automated driving divison saying that 2020 is a reasonable estimation of when we will see them on the road.

Even if they are a long way off, it’s defintely exciting to see a self-driving car that you would actually like to climb in to, rather than the Google self-driving Prius effort, which has become synonomous with automated vehicles!

[Image via inautonews]

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/7/5285204/vegas-drift-taking-self-driving-bmw-to-the-limit