Fiat Chrysler is speeding up its bid to develop autonomous driving technology, by signing on to a joint venture with the BMW Group, Intel Corp. and Mobileye that's expected to lead to a fully autonomous production vehicle by 2021.

FCA has joined the others, who formed a joint venture in July of 2016 with the stated purpose of developing a highly semi-autonomous (Level 3) vehicle as well as a fully autonomous (Level 4/5) vehicle, FCA and Intel have announced.

FCA has signed a memorandum of understanding for the agreement, which will include the co-location of engineers in Germany.

The group plans to deploy 40 autonomous test vehicles on U.S. roads by the end of the year. The venture is expected to benefit from the fleet of 100 Level 4 vehicles that Intel and its recently acquired Mobileye will test in the U.S., Europe and Israel starting later this year.

Since the forming of the venture, members have been designing and developing a scalable architecture that can be used by multiple automakers while allowing each to maintain its brand identity, according to FCA.