BMW is using AI for its car development and considers “pretzel speed” to be a measure of how fast it can bring these cars to market.
BMW’s chief development officer, Joachim Post, claims the company can now “bring cars to market the way you bake pretzels” using artificial intelligence, saying what they’re planning “will be something no one will be able to replicate so quickly” – not even Chinese automakers. The German automaker says AI is helping slash development teams from thousands of people down to just 1,000 per new car, with coding tasks that used to take days now finished in minutes. Here’s how BMW thinks AI will let them outpace even “China speed” in getting new models to market.
Amazing numbers and the AI takeover
Because artificial intelligence, when properly programmed, can process and handle development much faster than any human, using it for automation makes sense. The automotive AI acceleration in car development speed improvements at BMW could result in the brand launching as many as 40 models over the next two years, thanks to the help of AI-driven tools. This development cuts the coding time drastically and reduces the number of people required to build each car down to 1,000 rather than many more. That could mean some jobs are in jeopardy because of the vehicle development team reduction, which could bring in new issues caused by this AI takeover.
Pretzel speed is new in the automotive industry
The BMW AI car development that will go at “pretzel speed” is expected to allow them to outpace most other automakers, including Chinese automakers. It seems to be a BMW vs Chinese race when it comes to the automaker’s pace and development in the European market. Still, will the automotive coding and automation created by this BMW artificial intelligence development create more solutions or problems for the company? While developing a vehicle might take much less time, production doesn’t necessarily speed up, but BMW seems to have that figured out as well. By developing the most advanced automotive industry digitalization, BMW should be able to develop cars and get them to production faster than any other company.
A new platform adds AI integration
The BMW Neue Klasse platform is underway and adding AI integration seems to be the next step. This new platform and development philosophy is being used for newly launched EVS over the next few years. These new electric vehicles have better motors, more advanced batteries, and a brand-new platform to bring a full lineup of vehicles to the market quickly. The global use of this platform means the release of 40 new models and updates over the next few years.
Could vehicles lose their individuality?
There was a time when it was easy to identify each vehicle on the road and its differences from other models in the brand’s lineup. That time has passed, and EVs are all but erasing the individuality of vehicles completely. Most automakers utilize global platforms and offer several vehicles, of different sizes, on those platforms, ensuring that consumers can get the size they want with recognizable style. Could 40 new models over two years mean that every new BMW looks the same, but has only small differences? Isn’t that what we already see in the market?
Is accelerated development the answer?
Currently, electric vehicles are much more expensive than gas-powered vehicles, but could the new BMW AI car development at pretzel speed be the answer to this disparity? Could BMW bring new EVs to market that are more affordable than current gas-powered versions of those vehicles? That might not be the actual goal, but it could be a result of such quick development.
“We can now bring cars onto the market the way you bake pretzels, as they say in Bavaria. Nobody will imitate us so quickly what we plan to do in the next two years. And that’s why I say, what we’re doing is now more than China Speed.”
– Joachim Post
Vehicle development is usually much slower
Just because BMW can develop a car faster than ever before doesn’t mean production will be ready as quickly. That said, if BMW AI car development can operate at pretzel speed, maybe the production development can also operate that quickly. This could be a huge change for the brand and for the entire automotive industry, but it might also have some drawbacks that haven’t shown up yet.
What do you think of this new and speedy car development process? Do you trust products and services developed using AI?
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