BMW Group says it has moved one million vehicles without drivers using Automated Driving In-Plant, or AFW, its system for driverless vehicle movement inside production and logistics areas. MINI Plant Oxford is the fourth site to adopt it, after Dingolfing, Leipzig and Regensburg. BMW describes AFW as a "well-established, scalable standard application" that began as a pilot in Dingolfing in 2022.

The sensing sits in the plant, not in the car. AFW uses offboard LiDAR sensors installed in the facility infrastructure, combined with cloud architecture and motion planning software. Vehicles can therefore be moved regardless of their individual equipment specification. For automation engineers, that means one sensor installation can serve different models and architectures, which BMW says is the point of the design. The sensors also monitor larger areas and narrow passages, and vehicles react to people, other vehicles, driverless transport vehicles, logistics traffic and temporary obstacles. AFW is CE-certified for use in the production environment. Dingolfing operates the largest LiDAR infrastructure in Europe.

Oxford adds a new integration step. It is the first BMW Group location to connect automated guided vehicles directly with existing control systems. The system positions a vehicle next to a lifting device, where a defined operation is carried out, and a cloud-based solution handles the interaction between vehicle and equipment. MINI Plant Oxford logged more than 53,000 automated vehicle movements in the past year. Across the whole network, the average is around 3,500 movements a day.

"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," said Raymond Wittmann, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Production. He tied the system to the BMW iFACTORY, the company's label for its digital, connected production.

BMW developed AFW with Swiss company Embotech. The two worked together through the BMW Startup Garage, and BMW i Ventures, the company's venture capital fund, acquired a financial interest in Embotech in December 2024. Plant Spartanburg will become the fifth site, with series operation starting in 2027.