Bosch and Daimler join forces in race for driverless cabs

Daimler has announced a partnership with Bosch to develop a new fully autonomous taxi service that will be operational by 2020.

The goal is a fleet of 'Level 5' fully autonomous taxis that will be completely driverless.

Before that, Daimler says it will introduce vehicles capable of 'Level 4' autonomy which can operate with no human intervention in defined situations - like on highways or urban areas with embedded sensors.

Both Bosch and Daimler declined to reveal when the lesser Level 4 autonomous vehicles will be introduced.

Last January, Daimler announced it would be supplying self-driving Mercedes-Benz vehicles to American ride sharing company Uber - a plan to assist development of its own self-driving taxis.

Now, Daimler says it has decided to develop the technology in collaboration with Bosch - presumably following Uber's subsequent liaison with Volvo.

Additionally, Bosch says a tie-up with US tech firm Nvidia will help it gain a competitive advantage - the microchip-maker assisting development of the new supercomputers needed to manage fully autonomous driving.

Both companies claim the software will be ready no later than the beginning of the next decade but the plan is to have the new tech ready "as early as possible".