BMW Group Launches Largest Proving Ground For Automated Driving And Parking

BMW's Future Mobility Development Centre represents a 300 million euro investment by BMW located in Sokolov, Czechia, with the carmaker stating that it will employ around 100 locals who were previously employed in surrounding mines.

The investments and resulting new site will allow BMW to conduct a variety of automated driving tests on new technology and sensors without ever hitting public roads, and has been designed to replicate a number of real-world environments.

According to BMW, the Future Mobility test site will be entirely powered by renewable energy, including on-site electric vehicle charging infrastructure. “With our new centre, we have created a one-of-a-kind test site, designed exclusively for the highly demanding testing of automated driving and parking up to level four,” says BMW’s Board Member for Development, Frank Weber.

“On 600 hectares of land, we test all possible driving conditions with maximum flexibility and tremendous efficiency; city, countryside, freeway, as well as automated parking.”

“The special thing: we can run our test modules one after the other without stopping,” he added, concluding that “this makes our testing as realistic, reliable and customer-oriented as possible.”