BMW Moved 1 Million Cars Inside Plants Without Drivers

BMW Group has moved one million vehicles inside its factories without a single driver behind the wheel. The automated driving technology now runs at four plants on two continents. The system, called Automated Driving In-Plant or AFW, started as a 2022 pilot at Plant Dingolfing.

It now handles roughly 3,500 automated vehicle movements every day across Dingolfing, Leipzig, Regensburg and Mini Plant Oxford. BMW built the technology with Swiss firm Embotech. BMW Group Plant Spartanburg in South Carolina is next in line, with AFW entering series operation there from 2027.

Mini Plant Oxford Automated Driving During Production

Photo by: Mini

The milestone covers every automated move since that 2022 pilot, shifting finished and in-progress vehicles between production zones without anyone in the driver's seat.

Raymond Wittmann, the BMW AG board member responsible for production, tied the number to the company's broader manufacturing push. Wittmann said:

'One million vehicles moved using automated driving technology and the deployment of this technology at four sites to date demonstrates the innovative strength and scaling capabilities of our production network.'

Mini Plant Oxford alone logged more than 53,000 automated moves over the past year, making it the newest and fourth site to run the system in daily production. That plant's experience is shaping how BMW plans the technology's next expansion into the US.

AFW vehicles operate inside defined production and logistics areas, not on public roads. They're built to react to people, forklifts and other cars moving nearby. BMW describes the system as the largest LiDAR infrastructure in Europe, feeding the sensors that keep each vehicle aware of its surroundings.

At Mini Plant Oxford, the automated guided vehicles plug directly into the plant's existing control systems. That integration let Oxford scale past 53,000 movements without slowing the assembly lines it works alongside.

BMW says the system runs around the clock with availability above 99.5 percent. BMW is extending AFW to its production network beyond Germany and the UK on the strength of that reliability record.

What do you think?

Plant Spartanburg becomes the fifth AFW site and the first in the US when the system enters series operation there from 2027. BMW is starting small and expanding once the technology proves itself under real production volume, the same pattern it followed in Europe.

BMW has not said how many vehicles Spartanburg will move once AFW is running, but the plant already ranks among the company's largest manufacturing operations worldwide.