BMW completes one million driverless vehicle moves at factories — Motor1

BMW Group has completed one million automated movements of vehicles without drivers in production areas at its plants in Germany and the United Kingdom. As Motor1 reports, the Automated Driving In-Plant (AFW) system carries out around 3,500 such movements daily at facilities in Dingolfing, Leipzig, Regensburg, and the Mini plant in Oxford.

The system operates in production areas

BMW launched AFW technology as a pilot project at its Dingolfing plant in 2022. It moves finished vehicles and cars at various stages of assembly between production areas without a person behind the wheel. BMW developed the system together with the Swiss company Embotech.

The automated vehicles operate only in designated production and logistics areas, rather than on public roads. According to BMW, they respond to people, forklifts, and other vehicles nearby. The company also describes its LiDAR infrastructure as the largest in Europe.

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A US plant will be next

Over the past year, the system completed more than 53,000 automated movements at the Mini plant in Oxford. This is the fourth BMW Group facility where AFW operates in daily production mode. The system is integrated with the plant's existing management systems, which made it possible to scale its operation without slowing assembly lines.

BMW says AFW operates around the clock with availability of more than 99.5%. The next site will be the BMW Group plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina: serial operation of the system there is planned to begin in 2027. It will be the fifth plant with AFW and the first in the United States. BMW has not said how many vehicles the system will move at the Spartanburg facility after launch.