At the recently held BMW Group 2026 Fiscal Year Annual Conference, Oliver Zipse, Global CEO of BMW Group, officially confirmed a major strategic shift: given that Level 3 autonomous driving technology has yet to establish a sustainable commercial profit model, the company has decided to temporarily lower the R&D priority of this project. As a result, the mid-life facelift of the BMW 7 Series, originally scheduled to launch in April 2025, will no longer be equipped with the Personal Pilot L3 system.
Zipse made it clear at the conference that the decision was based on a comprehensive assessment of technological maturity, cost structure and market acceptance. “Putting L3 development on hold does not mean abandoning high-level autonomous driving technology,” he emphasized. “BMW will continue to monitor industry trends and restart its layout immediately when commercial conditions are ripe.”
In sharp contrast to the suspension of its global L3 program, BMW is accelerating the rollout of intelligent driving technologies in the Chinese market. On November 17, 2025, BMW Group announced substantial progress in its cooperation with Chinese tech firm Momenta, with the two parties jointly developing a new-generation intelligent driving assistance solution tailored for the Chinese market.
According to reports, the system is scheduled to debut in 2026 on the domestically produced next-generation BMW iX3, and will then be gradually rolled out to other future BMW models in China. The timing underscores BMW’s strategic focus on China’s intelligent electric vehicle market.
Sources within BMW’s technical team revealed that the new solution, developed exclusively for the Chinese market, adopts an integrated “perception-planning-control” architecture powered by large AI models. The technology deeply integrates Momenta’s leading capabilities in AI algorithms and data-driven development, as well as BMW’s decades of expertise in vehicle safety engineering and human-machine interaction.
Its core objective is to enable vehicles to understand complex road conditions in a manner closer to human drivers and make precise decisions and controls, ultimately delivering full-scenario navigation assistance covering highways and urban roads. This means BMW is enhancing the real-world experience of L2+ assisted driving by adopting technical approaches associated with Level 4 autonomous driving.
(Reprinted from https://news.eccn.com/）