Many industry insiders will already know this but for the first time that we know of, Bosch has publicly acknowledged moving into the autonomous space. (We had previously approached a representative of Bosch to re-publish some of his material and got told ‘no’.)

From the KPMG report of yesterday:

These vehicles will not be autonomous in the sense of being unconnected— rather, they will be able to drive themselves precisely because they are connected to the outside world via sensors and V2X
communications. Ultimately, this will lead to vehicles that cannot crash—or at least cannot crash under normal operation. That’s what Bosch, for example is working on. Frank S.
Sgambati, director of Marketing for Chassis Systems Control at Robert Bosch LLC explains, “Bosch is developing nextgeneration driver assistance systems as it pursues a vision of
collision-free driving.”
System failure may remain a possibility, but convergence also implies a multitude of redundant systems that can substitute for one another and yield safe operation even when failures occur. This crashless future would eliminate the injuries and property damage associated with vehicle
crashes and save more than 30,000 lives a year.

They’re not the first OEM manufacturer to do this, joining another German company, Continental, also in the space. The dance floor is getting awfully crowded.

Now more than ever, this is beginning to feel like a real arms race. The list of companies and universities working on autonomous tech is now as long as the menu in a Vietnamese restaurant.