It looks like rivalries no longer have a place in the automotive industry. The vast changes affecting the business and the rapid pace at which new technology is being demanded by the market is forcing traditional rivals to join forces. A while back BMW announced it will collaborate with arch-rival Daimler and subsequently Mercedes-Benz in this field. The Bavarians invited other companies to join this effort but few were willing to do so.
Audi is reportedly going to join its rivals later this year, according to German magazine Wirtschaftswoche . An announcement in this regard will be made at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The brand is currently claiming its A8 flagship has Level 3 autonomy, more than what BMW and Mercedes-Benz have right now. Nevertheless, issues with funding for the next step might be the reason why Audi decided to go down this route.
Volkswagen will apparently continue its work in collaboration with Ford. The parent company of Audi announced a while back that it will join forces with American giant in a bid to bring more autonomous driving tech to the market. This seems to be a trend these days, as more and more companies decide to share both the effort and the rewards. How far either collaboration will go remains to be seen.
It’s pretty obvious that autonomous driving is seen as one of the big steps in the evolution of the automotive industry. Some voices are saying that the idea we all have in our heads, of cars just driving themselves empty on highways might never come to fruition, BMW especially, but a lot of work is still going into making it a reality. It will certainly be interesting to see where all these joint ventures will take us and how the end products will look like.
