Intel plans to begin building self-driving cars soon, as the company reportedly wants to start production sometime later in 2017 on vehicles it will use for testing purposes. Intel reportedly states that it has plans to build a total of 100 test vehicles for its self-driving car fleet, and that each and every vehicle in the fleet will be equipped with fully autonomous functionality, meaning that the cars would be able to drive completely by themselves without the assistance of a human driver. Intel’s goal is a big one to be sure, but it has set its sights high and it wants to get at least few of those test vehicles on the road before 2018.
While Intel plans to build its own test fleet of self-driving cars, Intel is not in the automobile industry. It’s in the computing industry. Intel’s plan isn’t to enter the fray of the car market and start selling its own self-driving vehicles, rather the test fleet will be used to test out the Hybrid Autonomous Driving System that it picked up as part of its acquisition of Mobileye and act as a supplier for the self-driving car industry. Furthermore, Intel isn’t actually going to be building the cars itself. These will be built by a range of different car manufacturers giving Intel a fleet of cars with which to outfit the Hybrid Autonomous Driving System and test out its capabilities on different vehicles to see how it does with each one.
It’s suggested that the recently constructed Autonomous Driving Garage that Intel had set up in San Jose earlier this year might be the headquarters for the self-driving fleet once the test vehicles are finished, though it plans to test the vehicles in more than just the U.S., and will also test the vehicles in various parts of Europe as well as Israel which is where Mobileye is from. Intel doesn’t appear to have mentioned how long it will take to build the entire fleet of 100 vehicles or how long it plans to test each vehicle before attempting to offer its system on the market and supply other manufacturers with it. Considering the length of time other companies have spent on their own self-driving car testing, though, it probably won’t be a short period. That said, it isn’t surprising that Intel has shown interest in this business, as it believes the industry will be worth a hefty sum of money, stating that by 2050 it thinks self-driving cars will be an industry worth $7 trillion.