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BMW has confirmed plans to launch an electric, autonomous car by 2021, named the iNext. Chief executive Harald Krueger revealed the plans during the company’s celebration of 100 years in business.

“We are further expanding the BMW i line-up,” said Krueger. “In just a few weeks, we will offer an i3 with 50 per cent more battery capacity. In 2018, we will launch a BMW i8 Roadster. This will be followed in 2021 by the BMW iNext, our new innovation driver, with autonomous driving, digital connectivity, intelligent lightweight design, a totally new interior and the next generation of electro-mobility.”

See Also: Germany’s largest rail service wants to self-drive you home

Krueger didn’t give any details on the design or performance of the BMW iNext, we suspect a most of the autonomous car is still being worked on.

It is an interesting development however, since only a few automotive manufacturers have confirmed plans to launch autonomous cars. BMW has been one of the quicker car companies to embrace self-driving, with plans to install automatic parking on most cars by 2018.

An interesting part of the comment from Krueger is “the next generation of electro-mobility”, which suggests redefining of “automotive” from the company.

We’ve heard that automotive companies are looking into offering several autonomous cars on a flat rate, so you could use a sporty car to get to work and then an SUV to take the family somewhere special on the weekends.

The cars would wait in a garage for your call and customers would pay monthly for the package. BMW has not mentioned that scenario in the announcement of the iNext, but it is a possibility.

While BMW is one of the first to announce plans to launch an autonomous car, it is not alone in the race. Tesla is starting to implement self-driving systems on highways already, General Motors recently acquired an autonomous car startup for $1 billion, Audi, Ford, Toyota,Mitsubishi, PSA Group, and Fiat Chrysler are working on their own systems or in partnership with Google.

China’s LeEco unveiled its own self-driving electric car concept at a Beijing press conferenceearlier today, adding to the laundry list of products currently produced by the “Netflix of China”.

LeEco chief executive Jia Yueting demoed some of the self-driving capabilities at the event, including driving and parking. Yueting controlled the car through voice commands on a mobile device, a different approach to Google and Tesla that still use a touch interface.

See Also: Baidu wants self-driving cars on the roads by 2018

The car, named the LeSee, is still in concept stage, as far as we can tell. Yueting made no mention of specifications or price, but in the video teaser we got to see rear suicide doors and back seats that change shape to fit passengers bodies. Touchscreens are also fitted in the back seats, and Yueting said the car will feature face recognition and self-learning, though he did not demo this at the event.

We will hopefully get a clearer picture of the self-driving car at Beijing Auto Show on April 24, which LeEco are attending, according to Engadget.

It is not LeEco’s first foray into the self-driving market, it owns the startup Faraday Future, which introduced its self-driving concept car at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year.

For those that haven’t heard of LeEco — previously LeTV — the company started as an entertainment provider in China. It holds a large amount of copyright content for TV shows and movies. In the past few years, it has made significant investments in new technologies, like mobile, smart TVs, music, and cloud computing.

While the company hasn’t outright said it, the pushes into new hardware appear to be an attempt to create a ‘hardware-software-services’ ecosystem similar to Apple. That makes the move into self-driving cars less bizarre, as drivers will spend more time watching videos, listening to music, and messaging friends rather than driving in the future.