BMW moved a million vehicles driverless in its plants on a certified safety layer

BMW Group said in a release timestamped October 27 at 10:00 CET that one million vehicles had now been moved and guided at its plants using Automated Driving In-Plant technology, which it abbreviates AFW. MINI Plant Oxford became the fourth site to use it, after Dingolfing, Leipzig and Regensburg, and accounted for more than 53,000 automated vehicle movements in the past year. An average of around 3,500 automated movements take place every day across the network, and the rollout will continue in 2027 at BMW Group Plant Spartanburg.

BMW described the technology as a combination of external sensors, cloud architecture and advanced motion planning software. LiDAR sensors along the route capture the environment, which the company said enables vehicle navigation in real time, and artificial intelligence supports the continuous development, simulation and operation of the system. BMW said its Dingolfing plant operates what it called the largest LiDAR infrastructure in Europe. Oxford is the first BMW Group location to connect the automated vehicles directly with existing control systems.

A separate release from Embotech AG in Zurich, dated the same day, set out the software split. Embotech said it supplies AI-based software for perception, prediction and planning, and a separate, deterministic safety architecture, independently certified by TUV SUD, that defines and enforces the safety boundary. BMW’s own release said the system is certified in accordance with the Machinery Directive and described Embotech as the only company worldwide with multiple Level 4 industrial logistics systems certified by TUV SUD. It put availability at more than 99.5 percent with the system operating around the clock, and said the first 500,000 movements took 15 months and the next 500,000 took seven.

The pilot began at Dingolfing in 2022. BMW said its venture fund, BMW i Ventures, acquired a financial interest in Embotech in December 2024, following a partnership through the BMW Startup Garage. Neither release named a certificate number or scope for the TUV SUD assessment, and the availability figure appears only in the supplier’s release.