Jaguar Land Rover, Nvidia Step Up Self-Driving Car Efforts

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is stepping up its efforts to develop autonomous car tech by opening three new engineering hubs in Europe.

The centers will be located in Munich, Germany, Bologna, Italy and Madrid, Spain, and will focus on producing “driver assistance systems and artificial intelligence for self-driving cars of the future,” according to the company.

They mark the next step in JLR’s strategic partnership with chip manufacturer Nvidia, first announced last year, and will create 100 jobs.

JLR says the locations have been specifically chosen as they offer good access to top digital engineering talent, with the new hubs joining existing sites in the United States (Portland), China, Hungary, Ireland, India and the United Kingdom as the company makes a concerted bid to make up lost ground in the race to deliver self-driving tech.

“We are harnessing talent around the world to develop new autonomous technologies for our future products which will deliver a truly modern luxury experience for our clients,” said Thomas Müller, product engineering director at JLR. “Software is essential for us to deliver a fully connected experience and creating global engineering hubs will enable seamless hybrid working across several locations.”

JLR’s desire to up its game in the autonomous space has been evident since its deal with Nvidia was revealed in February of last year.

Related:Jaguar Land Rover, Nvidia Team on Automated Driving Systems

In announcing the partnership, the pair confirmed that from 2025, all new JLR vehicles will be built on the Nvidia Drive software-defined platform. This will deliver a range of active safety, automated driving and parking systems, as well as driver assistance tech. Inside the vehicles, the companies are promising driver and occupant monitoring, and advanced visualization of the car’s environment.

This full-stack solution will be based on Nvidia’s Drive Hyperion software-defined platform, which features Drive Orin centralized AV computers. These will run the JLR Operating System.

The partnership will also see JLR use insights from Nvidia data centers and access Nvidia simulators as it develops its vehicles. At the time the link-up was announced, then JLR CEO Thierry Bollore said it was essential to the future of the company as it “continues its transformation into a truly global, digital powerhouse”. Bollore subsequently left JLR in November.

There is no doubt that JLR is currently trailing premium rivals in the self-driving arena. Mercedes already has the approval to sell its Level 3 Drive Pilot tech in Germany and also gained permission to offer it in Nevada at the start of this year.

Drive Pilot allows the vehicle to take control of the driving under certain specific conditions, including in traffic on certain sections of highway at restricted speeds.

Volvo’s new EX90 has also been engineered to deliver Level 3 autonomy and sister firm Polestar is well on the way to offering it too.