Yesterday we ran a story on Mercedes-Benz's 6D-Vision technology, designed to recognize dangers on the road and avoid collisions during urban driving. Today we received some information on BMW's brand-new autonomous driving technology, meant to take control of your car on the highway and literally drive hands free. BMW's TrackTrainer technology had previously only been tested on closed tacks and now they are taking it out to the highway.

Combined with their ConnectedDrive technology and fitted on the 5-Series, the new system allows the driver to activate the program and sit back while the German car takes you along for the ride. The machinery takes you along the road braking and accelerating when necessary and it can even detect cars in front of you and on the side to allow the safe and automatic passing of vehicles. The German automaker's ultimate goal is to eliminate the need for a driver and make us, well... obsolete. The system is now being optimized for city driving and other forms of traffic-congested situations.

The photos show the technology fitted into the trunk of the 5-Series and also diagram how the car will pass another vehicle while maintaining its course.