Autonomous car: BlackBerry also joins the race

Lately, the electronics and mobile industries seem to be very interested in the automotive sector. Indeed, after Google and Apple, it’s now BlackBerry’ s turn to express its intention to start designing autonomous cars. A decision that is surprising at first sight, since nothing indicated before that the Canadian company was going to get involved in such a delicate field, that even the two Internet giants (Google and Apple) have abandoned recently.

An investment of 70 million euros

BlackBerry is really willing to pay a huge amount of money for the development of its driverless autonomous car project. The company intends to invest 70 million euros in this project. The sum is certainly not as large as that committed by Google and Apple for their project. However, it is already significant for a company that has just gone through rather dark periods in terms of sales of its mobile devices. The money in question will be allocated to the construction of a research center for the development of autonomous vehicles and the technologies that go with them. Basically, the product that will come out of it will certainly remain the same as the one already developed by the precursors. In other words, we will have a car equipped with sensors that will be able to drive itself.

Ford and Lincoln vehicles for testing

In order to carry out its project, BlackBerry intends to use modified Lincoln and Ford vehicles. Here, the idea is not to radically change these test cars. Rather, it will be a matter of integrating certain hardware and software that will allow them to be autonomous. Work should already be in its early stages at this time and testing should take place soon. As for the latter, BlackBerry has already obtained authorization from the Ontario government to test these future products on public roads. It is therefore clear that the course will be easy for the Canadian group. However, like all those who had passed before him, there will also be difficulties along the way. At least, let’s hope that it will be able to surpass them and that we will soon see a BlackBerry autonomous car on the market.

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