Baidu Inc. and partner BMW AG expect to begin testing a highly automated car in China by the end of this year, a BMW spokeswoman said, according to MarketWatch.

That suggests Baidu isn’t as far along in creating a driverless car as remarks from a Baidu executive at a conference in China earlier this week had suggested. Jin Wang, Baidu’s senior vice president, was quoted as saying the Chinese Internet giant planned to launch a self-driving car later this year.

Baidu and BMW announced a partnership in 2014 to develop a highly automated, or self-driving, cars for China that, among other challenges, could deal with multilevel highways. At the time, BMW said it planned to build prototype research vehicles that would operate on urban highways in Beijing and Shanghai.

A BMW spokeswoman said Thursday that the target is to begin test drives by the end of this year.

Already, more cars are being equipped with advanced driver assistance systems such as cameras and sensors. BMW, which has had a highly automated research car driving in Germany since 2011, on Wednesday unveiled a new version of its top-of-the-line 7-Series model that can park itself in a tight parking space or garage. It is due to land in showrooms in October.

Google Inc. plans to launch autonomous driving by 2017. Other companies are expected to follow.