Auto parts manufacturer joins self-driving vehicle alliance

Delphi Automotive PLC, an automotive parts manufacturing company, has been accepted to join an alliance for developing self-driving vehicles.

The BMW Group, Intel Corporation and Mobileye N.V. announced Tuesday their intention to onboard Delphi as a development partner and system integrator for their state-of-the-art autonomous driving platform.

While Delphi, headquartered in Gillingham, Kent, United Kingdom, issued a short news release about the move, the other three companies, which joined force in July 2016 to deliver a fully automated driving system for serial production by 2021, released a more detailed statement.

As one of the world's largest automotive parts manufacturers, "Delphi has already provided a prototype compute platform to the BMW Group and is working together with Intel and Mobileye in the areas of perception, sensor fusion and high performance automated driving computing," according to the statement.

BMW, headquartered in Munich, Germany, is the world's leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles with one of four brand names, namely BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad.

Intel Corporation, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, the United States, is the world's leading integrated circuit chipmaker.

Mobileye N.V., headquartered in Jerusalem, is a leader in the development of computer vision and machine learning, data analysis, localization and mapping for advanced driver-assistance systems.

These three companies, as Cooperation Partners, claimed they have developed "a scalable architecture that can be adopted by other automotive developers and carmakers to pursue state-of-the-art designs and create differentiated brands."

System integrators, such as Delphi, are critical for the go-to-market strategy of the joint solution to reach multiple automotive OEMs quickly, they said in the statement. And "a key role for Delphi will be the integration of the solution delivered by BMW Group, Intel and Mobileye into OEM vehicle architectures."

In addition, they expected that Delphi might provide required hardware components such as sensors as well as specific customization efforts and applications for differentiation.

"The partnership between BMW, Intel and Mobileye continues to break new ground in the auto industry," said Intel Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Brian Krzanich. "In less than one year the joint teams have made substantial progress to deliver a scalable platform for autonomous driving... Adding Delphi as an integration partner will help to accelerate the introduction of autonomous cars on the streets from multiple carmakers and offer differentiation to customers."

Krzanich said the alliance is "on path to deliver 40 pilot cars in second half of this year."

In his statement, Kevin Clark, president and CEO of Delphi, said his company's "close working relationship with all three partners serves as a solid foundation for a success."

Noting that the engagement between Delphi and the Cooperation Partners is "non-exclusive," BMW, Intel and Mobileye noted they are "in the process of onboarding additional integration and development partners to support future OEM customer needs."

OEM, short for original equipment manufacturer, refers in the auto industry to the manufacturer of the parts assembled during the construction of a new vehicle. Endit