Munich/Paris – BMW Group and Valeo have announced a strategic cooperation for the joint development of the next-generation high-end parking user experience for private grounds and parking facilities. The cooperation will provide a fully automated parking and charging experience for customers in enabled public parking facilities and sites. The software functions for this joint development are based on the current automated parking software stack first launched with the BMW iX in 2021. The next generation will be further extended by a powerful computing platform hosting the jointly developed algorithms.
The companies aim to continue delivering world-class driving and parking experiences to customers by creating truly amazing end user functions, state-of-the-art software, and hardware in all aspects of the digital value chain. According to Nicolai Martin, Senior Vice President Driving Experience at BMW Group, “This joint development is an important milestone for the BMW Group with regard to our next generation of automated driving and parking. With scalable L4 parking experiences, we confirm and strengthen our leading position in this domain.” Marc Vrecko, President of Valeo’s Comfort and Driving Assistance Systems Business Group, added that “other automakers will be able to join this platform, with BMW once again setting the standard for the most intuitive and pleasant user experience that its customers rightly expect.”
Automated Valet Parking (AVP) is a fully automated and driverless parking experience that offers customers comfort and safety benefits. The driver leaves the car at a drop-off zone, and the vehicle takes over tasks such as autonomously finding a parking spot, the necessary maneuvers for parking in and out, and can also drive back to a pick-up zone to return the vehicle back to the driver. Additional services like fully automated charging or fully automated washing can be deployed to optimize use of the parking time.
According to the draft of an upcoming ISO standard, AVP solutions will be clustered in two main categories, Type 1 and Type 2 systems. For a Type 1 system, the necessary technologies (including all sensors, computing units, and algorithms) run on the vehicle. For a Type 2 system, the required technologies (including sensors and the AVP management system) are installed in the relevant infrastructure, such as a parking facility, and the vehicle is controlled by the infrastructure. The BMW-Valeo partnership supports both AVP Type 1 and Type 2 and will strive for the most advanced solutions for next-generation parking experiences up to Level 4 according to market and customer requirements.
