As a pioneer in automotive connectivity, BMW offers customers tactile travel experience. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A virtual touchscreen, free-floating over the dashboard of an autonomous BMW Group vehicle, will enable the driver give feedback in a tactile way.

The future scenario may become reality with the leading German automobile brand evolving into a number-one technology company for premium mobility and services to inspire people on the move.

The futuristic BMW HoloActive touch system for the first time enables the driver and vehicle to interact visibly and tangibly without physical contact.

It uses with gesture control technologies and direct touch operation without pressing a physical button, allowing users to access the wide variety of services provided by BMW Connected, an integrated personal digital mobility companion.

"As part of this digital shift, we are expanding our know-how through strategic cooperation with partners from our own industry and technology leaders in other sectors," said Harald Kruger, chairman of the board of management of BMW AG in March in Munich.

"The BMW Group is shaping the future of mobility that is intelligently connected, seamlessly integrated and perfectly tuned to the individual needs," he continued.

The company has already put 8.5 million connected cars on the road worldwide－more than any other carmaker so far.

Beyond the tangibly connected cars, BMW has also been upgrading the capability in software, the BMW Connected Drive digital services, that consist of BMW Connected through Open Mobility Cloud and Connected-Driver services.

The BMW Connected app had reached a user base of 100,000 as of end of March 2017 in China, with net promoter scored 65 percent only three months after launch.

BMW Group contributes its leading capabilities to the connectivity system which is essential to technologies like autonomous driving and series production. The BMW Group acts in a visionary manner together with Intel and Mobileye, after entering into a strategic partnership last year, as they are always on a quest for the best solution.

Mobileye's road data generation technology will be introduced in newly developed BMW Group models entering the market in 2018 to enable next-generation, high-definition maps aimed at making driving safer and more efficient.

The inclusive industry collaboration is expected to further promote automated driving in a safe and robust way.

The wheels of BMW's concept car offer wind-in-the-hair enjoyment. [Photo provided to China Daily]

BMW Group's sensor data can be merged with data from different automakers, resulting in a larger scale of data used to create Mobileye's Global RoadBook, to support and update HD maps with highly accurate localization capabilities.

Autonomous vehicles will require HD maps that can identify and update changes in the environment with near real-time speed enabling a very short turnaround time to "reflect reality". The anonymized, fleet-wide data can help identify valuable information that is sent to the cloud in a highly compressed form (10 kilobytes per kilometer). This data can then be used to enable BMW Group customers to access true real-time information on traffic density, potential road hazards, weather conditions, on-street parking and other helpful information.

To address the needs of connected mobility and road safety with applications, BMW, Huawei, Intel, Nokia, Qualcomm and more partners have forged the "5G Automotive Association" to test and promote communications solutions, support standardization and accelerate commercial availability and global market penetration.

As an evolution of today's networks, mobile networks are expected to handle much more data, connect many more devices, reduce latency and achieve new levels of reliability.