BMW i brand to switch attention to self-driving vehicles

BMW has announced that it has embarked on a hiring spree to recruit a team of artificial intelligence experts to help it rapidly enhance the autonomous driving systems it is developing.

Speaking to newswire Reuters, BMW board member Klaus Froehlich confirmed the hunt for leading experts in self-learning technology and also revealed BMW's ambitious plans to create a new ride-sharing business to help kick-start growth.

Industry commentators suggest that as part of BMW's decision to focus on self-driving tech under the banner of the Project i Next program, the company's i sub-brand will significantly scale back its development of pure-electric vehicles and channel the cash into autonomous driving.

Behind the scenes, it's also been reported that senior BMW execs have been unimpressed by the pure-electric i3's lacklustre sales.

The advanced city-car has sold just 25,000 cars globally -- not impressive considering the rumoured 400,000-plus order bank for Tesla's Model 3.

Some pundits even suggest Project i Next could jeopardise the future of replacements for not only the i3 but the i8 supercar too, plus the yet-to-be-confirmed third i model that's thought to be a pure-electric medium-sized sedan that was to have arrived in 2021.