The United Kingdom accelerates its ambitions as autonomous driving cars

Slow and constant. When it comes to autonomous vehicles on the streets of the city, this was the approach in most countries of the world.

But Tuesday, the United Kingdom announced that he would put a cautious foot on the pedal, when the transport department said he would have accelerated the plans to allow companies to manage autonomous driving cars on public roads in pilot programs limited starting from the spring of next year. The British government had initially planned to open its roads for autonomous driving vehicles more than a year later, in the second half of 2027.

“We can see what enormous economic opportunity presents this technology,” says transport secretary Heidi Alexander to Wired in an interview. The Department estimates that the autonomous vehicle industry will create 38,000 jobs and generate 42 billion pounds ($ 57 million) for the country by 2035. The secretary also cites better and efficient travel options and road safety as motivators behind the new time sequence of the country. “We know how difficult companies are working on security issues and we do not want to sit down that this technology will develop further,” he says.

The pilot phase of the sides of autonomous vehicles of the country will include a limited number of vehicles, states the spokesperson for the Transport Department Marco Barbato, and the government will spend about a year to study the data that vehicles produce. The government aims to allow companies to completely launch autonomous taxi services in the second half of 2027.

However, the officials of the United Kingdom government say that will give priority to security. “We will not allow to distribute this technology on our streets unless we are sure that they have been satisfied with truly rigorous security tests,” says Alexander.

The main transport actors seemed ready to take advantage of the government announcement. The developer of British autonomous vehicles Wayve and the United States by-BEAT giant Uber declared Tuesday that they would collaborate to exploit the new plan of the government by launching autonomous evidence on vehicles on the roads of London.

London will be a difficult place to manage autonomous driving cars, says the CEO and co -founder of Wayve Alex Kendall. “This is not Phoenix, in Arizona, is not a city similar to a grid in the desert where the sun always shines,” he says. (Waymo has started his autonomous driving taxi service in Phoenix.) London, on the contrary, “is a medieval and structured environment. He has seven times more Jaywalker of San Francisco.” The launch of the service in London will help to demonstrate how “scalable and trusted” its autonomous technology can be. Kendall refused to say when Uber and Wayve could launch their service.

The various autonomous vehicles of Wayve.
For kind concession of Wayve