Munich. On 1 January 2019, Alejandro Vukotich will
take over as Senior Vice President of the BMW Group’s Driver
Assistance and Autonomous Driving Development department.
He is being appointed to replace Elmar Frickenstein, who has been in
charge of the department since its creation in May 2016. Between 2006
and 2016, Elmar Frickenstein was head of the Electrics, Electronics
and Driver Environment department that was the precursor to the Driver
Assistance and Autonomous Driving unit. During a career at the BMW
Group spanning 30 years, Elmar Frickenstein has had a formative
influence on vehicle electronics and channelled his energy and
expertise into its advancement. He will retire on 31.03.2019 after a
three-month handover phase.
Alejandro Vukotich has 19 years of experience in the field of active
safety, driver assistance and autonomous driving in the German
automotive industry. He has clearly demonstrated both his engineering
and his management skills in his previous positions.
The topics of driver assistance and autonomous driving play a pivotal
role in the BMW Group’s strategy for the future. Development is
largely carried out at the BMW Group Autonomous Driving Campus in
Unterschleißheim near Munich, which was officially opened in April
2018. There are currently around 1,300 specialists there from the BMW
Group and its key partners, such as FCA, Intel and Mobileye, who are
working on the development of a technology stack for highly and fully
automated Level 2, 3, 4 and 5 driving. The BMW iNEXT will be the first
model from the BMW Group to be equipped with a Level 3 system for
highly automated driving when it is launched in 2021.