A glimpse of the future

AfuLLy self-driving BMW will be in showrooms within four years — allowing you to read your Daily Mail or even sleep at the wheel, BMW engineers told me this week, as I became a guinea-pig for their totally autonomous vehicle.

I flew to a former Luftwaffe airfield near Munich to try out BMW’s prototype. The new technology will be used in the forthcoming futuristic i-Next car, which, from 2021, will be the firm’s first fully autonomous vehicle, powered by electric hybrid or a hydrogen fuel-cell.

Not only will drivers have their hands off the wheel, they’ll soon have their feet off the pedals and their eyes off the road, said the car maker.

The i-Next car will be a real-life version of the stunning Vision Next 100 prototype unveiled in BMW’s centenary year in 2016.

I rode as guinea-pig in a 5-series car kitted out with the next generation of sensors, radar, laser- scanners, cameras and computer mapping, and watched the steering wheel and brakes take on a life of their own to avoid cars driving out of side-roads, crossing our path, or braking hard automatically to stop hitting a car in front.

BMW said that when all cars are autonomous, motorists in London could spend up to five fewer days a year in jams because self-driving cars are more efficient than humans at navigating congestion. Traffic casualties will also fall because the powerful computers are more logical and less easily distracted than humans — and don’t get tired.

Project leader Dr Peter Schiele said: ‘This is not science fiction. The next generation of BMW cars will be fully autonomous. They really will drive themselves.’

In the wake of recent cyber attacks, some experts fear driverless cars could be hacked and hijacked. BMW stressed that the first generation of fully autonomous vehicles will not be allowed to make ‘life-and-death’ decisions — such as avoiding a child, but hitting a pensioner.

SPaIN’S Seat ( part of Germany’s Volkswagen Group) wants suggestions from the public for a name for its new sports utility vehicle set for launch next year — but says it must be relevant to Spanish geography.

In these Brexit- charged days, how about ‘Gibraltar’? It rocks.