BMW Inaugurates World's Largest Autonomous Driving Testing Center

The world's largest testing facility for autonomous driving technology. (Doc. BMW Group)

JAKARTA - BMW now has the largest testing facility for autonomous driving technology in the world. The latest 600-hectare testing site is located near the Czech Republic city of Sokolov.

The future mobility development center is known as part of the BMW Future Mobility Development Center, and joins the BMW testing site already in Aschheim near Munich, Miramas in France, and Arjeplog in Sweden.

This new test field is located in a former mining area that was changed by the company with an investment cost of 300 million euros or more than IDR 5 trillion. This testing site provides the perfect conditions for automated driving testing and simulations.

The latest site will join the existing BMW testing site in Aschheim near Munich, Miramas in France, and Arjeplog in Sweden.

"Through our new Future Mobility Development Center, we have created a unique testing site, specifically designed for automated driving and parking testing up to Level 4," Frank Weber said, in the BMW media room, July 26.

On this land, he continued, BMW could test all autonomous driving conditions with extraordinary flexibility and efficiency from cities, rural, expressways, and automatic parking. Another special thing, BMW can run test modules one by one without stopping. This makes BMW testing more realistic, reliable, and customer-oriented.

This new test site not only allows testing and further development of technological innovation, but is also an example of how the highest environmental and sustainability protection standards have been consistently integrated into its concepts and implementations.

During the planning and establishment of the proving ground, BMW collaborated with monitoring of the specialized ecological construction. So, the site uses green electricity and is equipped with a water management system that collects rainwater and uses it for track irrigation.

It is known, regarding autonomous driving technology, last year BMW announced it would cooperate with Here in the development of a handless driving system to Level 2+ that would allow driving assistance in the US and Canada.

Meanwhile, rival Mercedes-Benz has received approval from California and Nevada for the ADAS Level 3 system, which will be available as options for S-Class 2024 and EQS 2024.