BMW & Baidu End Joint Research On Self-Driving Cars

Not all partnerships last forever, which is why it doesn’t really come as a complete surprise to learn that BMW and Baidu’s partnership on self-driving car research has come to an end, according to a report from Reuters in which both companies have confirmed that the partnership has indeed ended.

For those unfamiliar, both BMW and Baidu teamed up last year on a joint research with regards to self-driving car technology. In fact BMW was the company responsible for providing the car that would help Baidu test their own technology. However the report from Reuters revealed that the partnership ended because both companies held different opinions on how they wanted to proceed with the research.

This is according to BMW’s China CEO Olaf Kastner who said, “We now have found that the development pace and the ideas of the two companies are a little different.” According to Wang Jing, the head of autonomous car development at Baidu, it seems that the company is already looking for new partners and are already in talks with potential ones, although no names have been mentioned. “I’m open for any partners, actually I’m talking to many.”

The company’s self-driving cars have been coming along rather nicely. In fact a couple of days ago Baidu had already begun testing out the technology on public roads over in China.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Transportation
Tags: baidu, bmw, Self-Driving Cars