BMWBLOG reported that BMW Board Member Klaus Froehlich spoke with Reuters at the Geneva Motor Show recently saying that it’s a core competence for the company to have the “most intelligent car.”
“Our task is to preserve our business model without surrendering it to an Internet player,” said Froehlich, pointing to Chinese parts maker Foxconn, who manufacturers Apple-designed products.
To achieve these goals, BMW is planning on ramping up its hiring so that half of its research and development team is made up of software engineers. They will be tasked with building artificial intelligence, which will ultimately power self-driving BMW cars of the future.
Harald Krüger, who replaced Norbert Reithofer as BMW’s CEO last May, would like to turn BMW more toward the digital world and work on the brand appeal – the “digital cool factor.” Growing the digital end of BMW’s business has already become a priority for the new leadership.
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