BMW, Tesla Select NVIDIA GPUs

Both BMW and Tesla have announced that they will be using NVIDIA graphics processors (GPUs) to power the infotainment in upcoming cars. BMW will use NVIDIA GPUs in the following models: 7-Series, 5-Series, 3-Series, Mini Cooper line and X-Series. While BMW seem to have chosen a “PC” graphics processor (to drive a 1280×1024 display), Tesla has selected Tegra (NVIDIA’s mobile processor) to drive  the Tesla Model S entertainment system. It makes sense as Tesla stands for energy-efficiency, which is also the main focus of Tegra.

The good news is that we might finally get on-board instruments and GPS Navigation that don’t suck. The bad news is that… these are expensive cars! That said, it is only a matter of time before this trickles down to mainstream vehicles. It’s funny, I would have thought that NVIDIA would find a way to have more than one GPU per car :)

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Computers, Top Stories, Transportation
Tags: bmw, CES, CES 2011, GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), NVIDIA, tegra, Tesla