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No driver, no key, no problem. BMW Group has just moved its one millionth brand-new car around its factories without anyone behind the wheel, as fresh BMW and MINI models glide themselves through production halls and logistics yards. The system is called Automated Driving In-Plant, or AFW, and it began life as a pilot at Dingolfing in 2022. Now it is going global.
The clever part sits outside the car. Rather than relying on each vehicle’s own sensors, BMW lines the route with LiDAR units that scan the surroundings constantly. Cloud computing and motion-planning software then steer every car in real time, so any model can drive itself regardless of its specification. It reacts instantly to workers, other vehicles, driverless transport robots and sudden obstacles. The factory becomes the chauffeur.
MINI Plant Oxford is the latest site to join the party, clocking more than 53,000 automated moves in the past year alone. It also breaks new ground as the first BMW Group plant to link these self-driving cars directly with its existing control systems. A freshly built MINI can now park itself beside a lifting rig, ready for its next job. A cloud-based system handles the handshake between car and machine. Leipzig and Regensburg already run AFW too.
The numbers are stacking up fast. Around 3,500 cars now drive themselves across the network every single day. Dingolfing hosts the largest LiDAR infrastructure in Europe, and the system carries CE certification for production use. BMW developed it with Swiss specialist Embotech, a start-up it has backed since 2018 and took a financial stake in through BMW i Ventures in December 2024. That bet is paying off.
Next stop, South Carolina. Spartanburg becomes the fifth site to run AFW in series production from 2027. Production board member Raymond Wittmann says BMW recognised the potential early and is now rolling the technology out worldwide. He frames it as the BMW iFACTORY vision turned into real industrial practice. One million moves down, and these cars are only just warming up.
