Fiat Chrysler says it has joined BMW's autonomous car partnership with Intel and Mobileye
Jack Ewing / New York Times :
Context & Ripple Effects
The BMW–Intel–Mobileye alliance has been assembling steadily since it first surfaced in mid-2016, adding supplier Delphi this past May and committing to a 40-vehicle urban test fleet with a fully autonomous car targeted for 2021. Fiat Chrysler's entry is notable because it was previously linked to a different path: late-stage talks with Alphabet on self-driving technology that never produced a deal.
First-order effects
- Fiat Chrysler gets access to a shared autonomous platform without funding its own development effort, while BMW, Intel, and Mobileye gain a second major automaker's volume and validation for their 2021 timeline.
Second-order effects
- Delphi, already brought in as the initiative's parts supplier, now has a larger customer base on the platform, and rival automakers face sharper pressure to commit to one of the few emerging self-driving alliances rather than go alone.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — automakers clustering around shared platforms instead of building proprietary stacks — the industry splits into a handful of self-driving camps, with suppliers like Mobileye and Intel capturing value that would otherwise stay inside OEMs.
The trend: Autonomous driving is consolidating into multi-company platform alliances, with automakers choosing sides among a small set of tech-led consortia.