BMW reaches 1 million driverless moves with Embotech AFW system
BMW has reached a pretty cool milestone: 1 million vehicles have now been moved around its factories without any drivers.
This is all thanks to their Automated Driving In-Plant (AFW) system, which they built with Swiss tech company Embotech and started as a 2022 pilot at Plant Dingolfing.
These self-driving systems are now handling about 3,500 car transfers every day at several big BMW plants, including Dingolfing, Leipzig, Regensburg, and the Mini Plant Oxford.
Oxford logs over 53,000 automated moves
The AFW tech has made it possible for BMW to safely move both finished and in-progress cars; no humans needed behind the wheel.
At the Mini Plant Oxford alone, over 53,000 automated moves happened in just one year.
With a reliability rate above 99.5%, BMW is planning to bring this system to its Spartanburg plant in the US from 2027 as part of a bigger push for smarter manufacturing worldwide.