BMW's riderless, self-driving motorcycle goes for a spin at CES 2019
Cars
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We've seen a lot of driverless cars here at CES, but BMW has something a little bit different, a riderless motorcycle.
That's right, this R 1200 GS is autonomous.
Now the point of this bike is not to develop a motorcycle that doesn't need a rider.
Rather this is a test project BMW's been pursuing for about three years.
To help it develop driver assistance and safety features for future motorcycle models.
Basically BMW is developing software that will help make riding motorcycles safer.
It will help owners especially new riders avoid the claimed half of all accidents that are caused by rider error.
Specifically BMW says it's putting a lot of effort into working on safety when turning it into sections or emergency braking.
BMW says that most of the gyroscopes and other sensors you'd need for those safety technologies are already built into a lot of its motorcycles.
So adding software tech on top of that wouldn't really add too much We can expect to see advanced rider assistance systems, like adaptive cruise control and automatic pre-collision braking in BMW's GS motorcycle line in about two to ten years time.
And then after that those features will trickle down to other versions of BMW motorcycles.
For now though, we're just kind of enjoying the wow factor of seeing a motorcycle that can drive around without anybody on it.
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