There was a time when taking your hands off the wheel on a motorway meant either trouble or a tow truck. BMW has spent the last few years trying to turn it into a feature.
Its Motorway Assistant system has now logged more than 200 million km of real-world hands-free driving, which is either a major milestone in driver assistance tech – or a sign that people are increasingly happy to let the car do the boring bits.
Available across models including the 5-Series, 7-Series, iX, X5, X6, X7, XM and the new iX3, the system allows hands-free driving at motorway speeds up to 80 mph (130 km/h), handling steering, acceleration and lane changes confirmed with a glance.
BMW is careful not to call it self-driving. Instead, it frames it as a collaboration between driver and machine, which sounds reassuring until you remember one of those participants is running on software updates.
The rollout is expanding across Europe, including the UK via the iX3 from July production, as the brand steadily pushes its driver assistance tech into more markets and more everyday use cases.
And it sits neatly alongside BMW’s wider in-car tech strategy – streaming apps like ITVX and Global Player, Alexa+ integration, and the Panoramic iDrive system turning dashboards into something closer to digital command centres. Add in partnerships with Bowers & Wilkins and Dolby, and you’re not far off describing some BMW cabins as rolling cinemas with steering wheels attached.
The car, it seems, is no longer just something you drive. It’s something that performs while you supervise.
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