As BMW continues to weld a position for itself in the next generation of connected and autonomous car technology, it's signed up for one more partnership that focuses on the data side of the equation. Today, IBM announced that it would be working with BMW on R&D where Watson sensors and computing will be integrated into BMW cars to pick up car data and help with new systems aimed at vehicles running more efficiently and with more personalisation for specific drivers and passengers. As part of the deal between IBM and BMW, IBM will be hacking four BMW i8 hybrid sports cars at its Munich Watson IoT HQ, turning them into prototype solutions that will run on IBM's Bluemix cloud platform. To be clear, although there are a lot of efforts underway right now in the industry to built autonomous (self-driving) cars, this is not exactly about that. Rather it's more about figuring out the best way of building systems in vehicles to help make them work better, whether or not they are being driven by humans.

You're about to get a new passenger in your BMW, and his name is Watson. On Thursday, the German automaker announced a new collaboration with IBM, in which the two companies will "work together to explore the role of Watson cognitive computing in personalizing the driving experience and creating more intuitive driver support systems for cars of the future." So even if you're not the smartest driver in the garage, BMW and IBM want to help. This is by no means the first time BMW has shown an interest in connected technology and the smart car space. Just a few months ago, the luxury car brand announced a number of initiatives around its mysteriously named "Strategy Number One," including self-driving technology, mobility, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication.

IBM and BMW announced Thursday that they have teamed up to figure out how Watson, the A.I. most famous for winning Jeopardy! in 2011, could be used to make driving better. Could this finally make KITT from Knight Rider a reality? The companies said they want to explore the potential of Watson "personalizing the driving experience and creating more intuitive driver support systems for cars of the future." That sounds an awful lot like the talking car that helped David Hasselhoff get out of all sorts of hairy situations in the '80s. BMW will have some researchers work out of IBM's $200 million Watson Internet of Things headquarters in Munich as part of the agreement. The hope is that pairing their resources will allow the two companies to make driving more fun for human operators until autonomous vehicles take over for their human drivers.