In our recent sensor-fusion feature, Steven Spieczny of Kognic highlighted the successful expansion of Kodiak’s self-driving heavy goods vehicle (HGV) mileage in America.
While the recipient of our 2023 Award for Testing, Quresh Sutarwala, moved on to Applied Intuition, Kodiak has enjoyed an incredible 2024, announcing some major new corporate partnerships and launching the Kodiak Industry Advisory Council.
Intended to help guide Kodiak’s strategic roadmap and inform how autonomous trucks “will benefit the trucking industry, society, and the world”, the high-profile committee includes James Reed, VP of Transportation Development at Walmart; Chad Dittberner, SVP of Dry & Expedited at Werner Enterprises; Anne Ferro, former FMCSA Administrator and President of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators; William Kruger, VP of Fleet Maintenance and Engineering at UPS; Shannon Newton, President of the Arkansas Trucking Association; and Brett Suma, Founder and CEO of Loadsmith.
Kodiak launches Industry Advisory Council for self-driving trucking
“We’re fortunate to have such an esteemed group of industry luminaries whose range of experience includes work with industry-leading shippers, carriers, safety advocates, and regulators,” said Council chair and Kodiak board member, James Reed. “Their unique perspectives will help to lead and shape the ways we approach industry and driver engagement, industry transformation, and driving public acceptance of autonomous trucks.”
Self-driving logistics
As to its new partners, in January, Kodiak established a new truckport at the Houston facility of leasing and fleet management specialist, Ryder. Described as an “ecosystem-first, capital-lite approach”, it will serve as a base for testing and validating autonomous freight operations between Dallas, Houston and Oklahoma City.
Kodiak and Ryder partner on self-driving freight in Texas
Further significant news followed the very next month. In February, Kodiak announced a landmark agreement with supply chain giant Martin Brower to autonomously deliver refrigerated freight for “two of the top five largest fast food chains in the United States”.
It includes eight time-critical deliveries per week between Dallas and Oklahoma City, with the two companies already exploring additional shuttle lane opportunities. “We chose Kodiak because we share a mutual commitment to safety and customer service,” said Mark Grittner, Director of Global Capital, Fleet and Facilities at MB.
“By working together, we are able to benefit from the safety, reliability and efficiency provided by Kodiak’s autonomous technology, while also ensuring our local drivers can continue to provide the best-in-class customer service that is foundational to Martin Brower’s reputation.”
Kodiak and Martin Brower partner on time-critical self-driving freight
Kodiak founder and CEO, Don Burnette, added: “Your next order of fries may well have travelled on a Kodiak truck! Autonomous trucks are well-suited to the difficult work of long-haul driving, while allowing our partners’ local drivers to handle last-mile deliveries and provide a personal touch for customers.
“Martin Brower’s shuttle lane model is an ideal application for Kodiak that enables us to demonstrate the value of our technology within our customers’ existing networks.”
As part of the partnership, MB has joined Kodiak’s Partner Deployment Program, designed to help carriers establish autonomous freight operations and integrate the Kodiak Driver self-driving system into their fleets.
The Solihull & Coventry Automated Links Evolution (SCALE) self-driving shuttle project will launch in Q4 2024
Visitors to the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham – home to many of the UK’s most popular motoring events – will soon be able to enjoy electric self-driving shuttle rides courtesy of New Zealand-based autonomous vehicle manufacturer, Ohmio.
The first in an eagerly anticipated wave of new UK self-driving pilot announcements expected before Christmas, The Solihull & Coventry Automated Links Evolution (SCALE) project will see a fleet of three Ohmio Lift shuttles (with a safety driver behind the wheel) ferrying passengers along a new 7km route linking Birmingham International railway station, the NEC, and nearby Birmingham Business Park.
SCALE consortium
Supported by the Centre for Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), Innovate UK and Zenzic, to the not inconsiderable tune of £4m, the project will be led by Solihull Council and delivered by a consortium including Coventry University, WMG at The University of Warwick, Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), the NEC, Coventry City Council, Direct Line Group, IPG and dRISK.
SCALE consortium with Ohmio electric self-driving shuttles
“Connected Automated Mobility (CAM) technology has the potential to revolutionise the way we get around,” said Councillor Andy Mackiewicz, Cabinet Member for Climate Change & Planning in Solihull.
“We are excited to be leading the way, not just in Solihull, but regionally and across the country, in providing learning on CAM deployments in different settings and scenarios. We’ve already carried out a series of successful pathfinder trials here in Solihull, and shown how it is possible to practically and safely start incorporating self-driving vehicles into key parts of our transport infrastructure.
“SCALE represents the next step in this learning and will help develop our understanding around how future commercial passenger services might operate. We’ve brought together a fantastic consortium of experts for this pilot and are already benefitting from the ability to share our relevant expertise and experience.
“Taking place across one of the best-connected destinations in the UK and Europe, this new Solihull-based route will join up three key assets within the UK Central Hub area, operating in a busy but controlled environment and gaining further real-world operating experience.”
L-R: Ian Pulford, Director of Ohmio UK, with Solihull Councillor, Andy Mackiewicz
Ohmio Lift self-driving shuttle
The Ohmio Lift shuttle can carry up to 20 passengers, the route features specialist roadside technology, and every SCALE journey will be tracked in real-time from the nearby TfWM control centre.
“This is a really exciting opportunity for Ohmio as we grow our business in the UK and Europe,” said Ohmio CEO, Dean Zabrieszach. “We’ve been involved in numerous trial deployments across the world; however, in the SCALE project, it is evident that our consortium members are eager to progress towards a full-scale transportation service.
“Autonomous electric shuttles like the Ohmio Lift have the capacity to fill a void in current transportation systems by providing first mile and last mile accessibility for our communities.
“We look forward to working with our partners in delivering a first-class project and look forward to continued opportunities in the UK, where the government is taking a leading role in supporting such projects.”
Ohmio Lift 100% electric self-driving shuttle
Self-driving UK
Mark Cracknell, Programme Director at Zenzic, added: “This is an exciting development for SCALE, one of the six successful projects from the CCAV Deployment competition, which form the most advanced set of commercial self-driving passenger and freight operations anywhere in the world.
“With these investments, the UK is further strengthened and positioned to become one of the world’s leading destinations for the adoption of CAM technology and the delivery of improved transport services.”
Services are due to start “before the of the year”, with the initial project scheduled to run until the end of March 2025.
Early riders are therefore likely to include petrolheads on the annual pilgrimage to the Autosport International show in January. Positive feedback from them would be a notable win in the race for public acceptance.
Then there’s the indy kids heading to see Ocean Colour Scene in March. Which will be more memorable, The Day We Caught The Train or catching a self-driving shuttle? Any excuse to play it… enjoy!
Cutting-edge self-driving and clean fuel technologies on show at Cenex Expo 2024
Cenex Expo 2024 at UTAC Millbrook on 4-5 September, branded ‘Net Zero & Connected Automated Mobility’, featured a welcome emphasis on the latter – self-driving in particular – and showcased vital progress on the former – with electric and hydrogen vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and an array of related products and services.
The first stand you encountered on entry was Beam Connectivity, winner of our inaugural Self-Driving Industry Award for V2X. One of the more eye-catching vehicles outside was a classic red and black Porsche 911 Targa, converted to electric and featuring Beam connected tech.
Beam converted and connected Porsche 911 Targa
Day 1
Headlines from day one included a PAVE UK roundtable featuring new Minister for the Future of Roads, Lilian Greenwood MP, and the Niche Vehicle Network (NVN) awarding its Nick Carpenter Innovation Award to the Callum Skye – a high performance all-electric on- or off-roader powered by a 42kWh battery with an anticipated 170-mile range.
NVN awards 2024 Nick Carpenter Innovation Award to Callum Skye
“The potential embedded CO2 reductions that have been realised through the use of sustainable materials could be immediately transferrable to other vehicles across the niche sector,” said NVN Programme Director, Scott Thompson. “Seeing the potential offered by UK designed ultra-fast battery technology is really exciting too.”
Full disclosure: we weren’t actually there on the first day, but fortunately The Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) captured these video highlights:
APC’s Cenex Expo 2024 Day 1 Highlights
We can, however, provide an in-depth report into the self-driving-related highlights from the Thursday.
Day 2
Apart from Beam, other standout CAM exhibitors included Aesin, Innovate UK, WMG and Fusion Processing, which displayed its new Automated Tow Tractor, set to hit the market in 2025.
Cenex Expo 2024 CAM exhibitors
“We are fast approaching a pivotal moment in the evolution of transportation,” said Jim Hutchinson, CEO of Fusion Processing. “The combination of our technology progress and the supportive legal environment mean that it’s time for operators of commercial vehicle fleets to plan for the availability of these vehicles over the next three to four years – much sooner than previously expected.”
We spent most of the day in the ‘CAM Main Plenary’, where notable attendees included #SDIA24 judge Dr Nick Reed, Amy Rowley of BSI, Steve Berry and Clem Robertson of Angoka, Mi-Link project manager John McNicol, and Nick South, Patent Attorney at AA Thornton.
Paul Bhatia of ESA Space Solutions at Cenex Expo 2024
The first session, ‘Scaling CAM Infrastructure’ was chaired by Andrea Reacroft, Digital Transport Programme Delivery Manager at Tees Valley Combined Authority, and featured Jonathan Eaton of The UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN), Mili Naik of Zenzic, James Long of London’s Smart Mobility Living Lab (SMLL) and Paul Bhatia of ESA Space Solutions.
Eaton highlighted not only the AV Act but also the new Electronic Trade Documents Act as vital in enabling the seamless movement of goods between taxable zones.
“We need to pull together all the clear business models and use cases to drive investment in the connected infrastructure to support CAM,” he said, citing the logistics efficiency benchmark of taking 10 minutes to travel 10 miles (10-10).
UKTIN at Cenex Expo 2024 – 10 in 10
Naik opened with the quote by mathematician Clive Humby that “data is the new oil”, while Long outlined some of the amazing testing at SMLL, and, as an example of the detail, referenced The Met Office’s research into sensor interpretation of different sized raindrops.
Noting that here in 2024 we are still talking about a minimum viable connected infrastructure to enable large scale CAM deployment, he put it bluntly: “The coverage is not where it needs to be”, adding that the 3G switch-off is also causing issues for older intelligent transport systems.
Bhatia engagingly focussed on space tech and the importance of satellite communications, saying: “Look to the future and make 6G an integral part of the CAM ecosystem. Satellite is part of the answer for both assisted and automated driving – one of the multiple on- and off-vehicle technologies that brings the necessary robustness.”
ESA Space Solutions at Cenex Expo 2024 – 6G
One of the best things about big events is they tend to provide a welcome reminder of the basics – why self-driving is so important. Among other benefits, it can help us to tackle global warning.
Deniz Çetin of Karsan pointed us to the latest deeply worrying figures from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, run by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission: Summer 2024 was the hottest on record, both globally and for Europe.
Using the example of Karsan’s Autonomous e-ATAK, which has been carrying ticketed passengers in open traffic in Stavanger, Norway, since 2022, Çetin said: “People these days can’t believe that once there were lift operators. You just don’t need them now, and it will be the same with drivers and autonomous vehicles.”
Graphic illustration of congestion-busting potential of self-driving shuttles over robotaxis
Jim Fleming, of Fusion, predicted the successful commercialisation of CAM within two years. “The UK is moving onto a leadership position in the legal structure,” he said. “Local authorities can take on more responsibility and we need to get the message out that this is coming very soon.”
In a Q&A, we discussed the gridlock-solving advantages of autonomous shuttles over robotaxis, with Ewan Murdoch, of Arup, raising ‘the perception danger of removing the safety driver’ – a subject we’d return to after lunch.
Self-driving supply chain
Following a dash around the impressive vehicle line-ups outside, we returned for a wide-ranging exploration of the CAM supply chain, chaired by David Webb of CCAV, and featuring Teodora Demirova of Zenzic, Dean Zabrieszach of Ohmio, and Dr Martin Dürr of Dromos.
Emphasising the UK’s strength in intellectual property (IP), Demirova asserted that the top high value opportunities in CAM include: Research and technology organisation (RTO), Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) / Authorised Self-Driving Entity (ASDE), software and hardware, test services, and insurance and legal.
Zenzic’s top high value opportunities in CAM
Zabrieszach explained how Ohmio got into AV, having previously specialised in intelligent highway signage. He namechecked AXA insurance and addressed the safety driver question head-on, saying “Autonomy is not autonomy if you have a driver on board.”
Ohmio’s new shuttle – on display in the concourse – attracted a lot of attention and a new public road trial will begin in Milton Keynes later this year. We’ve put our name down to have a go in that as soon as possible!
Dr Martin Dürr focussed first on value for money, noting that the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in San Francisco costs over $5 billion a year to run, with much of this coming from taxpayer subsidises.
The Dromos system, he claimed, delivers vastly better capital expenditure (CapEx) and operating expenditure (Opex) performance, not only than legacy systems like BART, but also than the new autonomous shuttle alternatives.
Dromos on CapEx and Opex benefits
“Our smaller vehicles help to overcome the personal safety fears,” he said. “With the added advantage that there is no strict timetable to keep to, so people can take as long as they need to board and alight.”
Operationalising the AV Act
It wouldn’t be a self-driving event without the percentage of road ‘accidents’ involving human error getting a mention. According to Swapnil Pathak, Head of UK Business Development at BlueBinaries, the latest research puts it at 94%.
The final session of the day was a panel discussion on ‘Operationalising the Automated Vehicles Act – Underpinning Secondary Legislation with Research Evidence’, hosted by Ben Gardner, of Shoosmiths, and featuring Prof. Siddartha Khastgir of WMG, Jamie Hodsdon of Oxa, Daniel Quirke of Wayve, and Pablo Rodriguez Corbacho of Applus IDIADA.
“We need to act on the Act, to build on it with secondary legislation, and to continue pushing the conversations at UN level,” said Khastgir.
Much of the debate focused on the requirements for on-road testing without a safety driver, dubbed ‘advanced testing’, before moving to full commercial approval.
Thanks to all involved and apologies to those we missed – there was a lot of great cutting-edge tech on show.
Launched five years ago and already working with household-name OEMs, Gothenburg-based Kognic is very much one to watch in the fast-growing self-driving perception software sector.
Cars of the Future spoke to Vice President of Marketing, Steven Spieczny, to find out about the sensor-fusion annotation platform everyone’s talking about…
Steven Spieczny is Vice President of Marketing at Kognic
“Kognic was founded by two technologists from the machine learning space to address the need for accurate training data for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Automated Driving Systems (ADS).
“We have a quickly built-up a diverse customer base, including global vehicle manufacturers such as Volvo Cars/Zenseact, Tier 1 suppliers like Bosch, Continental and Qualcomm, and some very innovate start-ups such as Kodiak, a leader in autonomous for commercial trucking.
“We process data from cars, vans, trucks, drones and robots, and feed it into our cloud-based software platform. Information from cameras, lidar, radar, gets pulled into one comprehensive dataset.
“From there, everything that can be sensed is defined and labelled – that’s a road sign, that’s a pedestrian sitting on a bench, that’s a big truck straight ahead!
Kognic annotation
“This tagging process is called annotation. You see it quite a bit in healthcare, for example, to automatically flag broken bones on scans. In automotive, the level of complexity is much higher because the data we’re capturing is constantly changing, literally a moving picture.
“We help our customers to manage and curate this data so they can, in turn, use these datasets to power their AI products through model validation and tracking of performance.
“For ADAS, it started with lane marking recognition, where there are a lot of variables. Then you expand the data domain, which gets you these rare occurrences. For instance, light source object detection (LSOD) is a crucial use case where the reflection of a vehicle must be distinguished from an actual vehicle on the road.
Kognic point cloud with pedestrians and vehicles
“Obviously, in the AV industry, there’s been a fair bit of turmoil over the last few years for consumer vehicle applications. This gave way to a parallel focus on commercial trucking.
“One of the early assessments was that long-haul trucking was the perfect use case – long straight roads, no pedestrians. It turns out this is actually a really hard dynamic to get right – high speeds, sensor range limitations and long stopping distances, especially when fully loaded, contribute to a similarly complex situation.
“Kodiak is one of our trucking customers in the US. They’re doing about 70,000 autonomous miles a month now, all the way from California down through the Southwest into Texas.
“They’re a success story in a sector which, like robotaxis, has seen a lot of ups and downs. Kodiak supply a top to bottom autonomous stack, and we sit behind that, pushing and pulling all this sensor data to enable their machine learning to make better decisions.
Kognic pre-annotation
“The ascension of the data scientist is important here, along with the new depth of technology around self-supervised learning, all these very geeky things.
“Data is the fuel for Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) – this idea of programming with data, rather than traditional coding. Our software enables the fusion of data from various sensors and the way we pre-annotate helps to make the whole process more efficient and cost-effective. That’s our USP.
Kognic pre-annotation for ADAS and self-driving
“In the future, we believe, as many do, that everything that moves will have some form of autonomy. The whole world of AI is very dynamic, particularly with regards to self-driving cars because of the vast amount of data involved.
“For something like ChatGPT, 80% accuracy might be ok. For something as safety critical as self-driving, it has to be 99.9%. The principal is the same though – more inputs in order for the machine to learn on its own and be smarter about the outputs.
Sensor-fusion for self-driving
“We agree with Wayve that Embodied AI is the great North Star, but we’re not there yet. It’s unrealistic for the market to assume that we’re quickly going to jump to level 5 autonomy. We’re going to have to build up the capability, and that’s a big challenge.
“Concurrent to all this is the transition to the software defined vehicle (SDV). There’s a Mercedes model which is approved for level 3 in certain conditions in Germany. In the UK, Ford’s BlueCruise assisted driving system enables hands-off on some motorways.
“In a nutshell, the better your data, the better your models will be, and that will ultimately result in better user experiences. We call this alignment to expectation, and safety is the biggest issue.
“The self-driving industry needs a way to accurately calibrate and merge senor data to provide the machine with a very specific picture about what it is seeing at any given time. Kognic has that annotation platform to produce what is needed.”
To accelerate self-driving in the UK, Zenzic has announced six more exceptional SMEs to receive up to £100k each as part of its prestigious CAM Scale-Up programme.
22 self-driving innovators have been supported by the programme since 2020. This is the fifth ‘cohort’, and we’ve covered the journeys of multiple 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 winners here on Cars of the Future.
The six 2024 winners, in alphabetical order, are:
Blueskeye AI – Nottingham-based company building clinical grade facial recognition technology for fatigue detection.
Deontic UK–London-based large language model (LLM) artificial intelligence to help integrate regulatory frameworks into self-driving technology.
Maaind – London-based company using speech recognition, computer vision and smart device readings to mitigate stress-related driving accidents.
Moonbility – London-based company using CCTV to provide real-time information about available wheelchair bays on buses.
Opteran – Headquartered in London, provides neuromorphic software to enable machines to mimic the human brain’s driving abilities.
Saif Systems – Cambridge-based provider of real-time safety monitoring software on proprietary hardware e.g. to stop systems operating outside of constraints.
Self-driving funding
Supported by the government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), and in partnership with tech start-up supporter Plug and Play, a key benefit of CAM Scale-Up UK success is access to the world-leading facilities of CAM Testbed UK, which now includes Catesby Tunnel and Tees Valley.
CAM Scale-Up UK 2023 winner Gamma Energy is now a partner in the Project Cambridge Connector on-demand self-driving taxi trial
Mark Cracknell, Programme Director at Zenzic, said: “CAM Scale-Up UK is not just about providing funding to businesses, it’s very much a wrap-around support programme which provides those successful with everything they need to truly realise their potential.
“Through CAM Testbed UK, they can test their solutions in as close to real-life scenarios as possible and accelerate their route to market. All the while picking the brains of some of the brightest minds in industry.”
For further info on the CAM Scale-Up UK programme, please see the Zenzic website.
Corey Clothier, Co-founder of ARIBO, will once again be on the judging panel for the Self-Driving Industry Awards, focussed on AV strategy, development and deployment
World-renowned self-driving vehicle expert, Corey Clothier, co-founded ARIBO in 2016 to assist new operators with AV strategy and help AV developers grow into new markets.
For over 15 years now, Corey has been helping global cities and pretty much anyone with a campus to realize the benefits of AVs – to reduce costs and risks by embracing autonomy.
“It’s not just about the vehicle, it’s about setting up the entire ecosystem, from field engineering and testing, to measuring performance and managing systems,” he said.
Self-driving projects
Recent projects include evaluating AV support for mining in South America, supporting automated trucking adoption with the Canadian forestry industry, advising on an autonomous bus for a US national park, and taking a fractional leadership role as Global Automated Mobility Lead at sustainable design and engineering specialist, Arcadis.
“We’ve also been looking into automated transit network applications, working with Dromos, who won your Design Award last year, and other great start-ups,” he said.
“Airside operations are also really interesting, and we’ve been working with airports, airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to plan for and adopt automated vehicle systems. We’ll be making an exciting announcement on that very soon.”
Self-driving strategy, development and deployment experts – Aribo
Following Uber’s investment in Wayve, we ask: who will own self-driving cars?
Sounds like a simple enough question, right? Actually, predicting who will own self-driving cars takes us to the complicated intersection of the connected, automated, shared and electric megatrends.
For many of us born last century, a car will be the second most expensive thing we ever buy, after a house. With our hearts ruling our heads, we dismissed the sage advice of oil baron Paul Getty – “If it appreciates, buy it. If it depreciates, lease it.” – for the love of a particular model in our favourite colour.
These days, thanks to modern finance products such as Personal Contract Purchase (PCP), we get the best of both worlds – the option after three years to purchase outright or return it to the lender, and repeat. No wonder the UK vehicle parc hit an all-time high of over 41 million last year.
SMMT new car registration figures, July 2024
However, within the SMMT’s new car registration figures, there’s a notable trend: the growth is driven by fleets, with both private buyer and business registrations well down. What’s going on?
Access or ownership
A 2023 McKinsey Mobility Consumer Pulse survey of 4,000 French, German and UK respondents provides a clue. It found that 60% owned a car, and 80% had regular access to one – an important distinction, and demographics come into play.
As Doug Jenkins, Motor Technical Risk Manager at AXA Insurance, has pointed out: “In my day, passing your test and getting your first car was all about mobility. Young people still want to get from A to B, but they want choices – they’re not so worried about ownership.”
Temporary car insurance provider, Cuvva, provides some compelling statistics: the average car owner in Outer London will spend £3,502 a year on running costs alone (insurance, fuel, MOT, tax and maintenance), and 31% of London car owners use their vehicle less than 10 times a month.
The unsurprising result is, as Andrew Smith, managing director of vehicle rental firm Sixt, told The Telegraph: “We see customers now who come to us every Friday and rent a car just for the weekend.”
So, less outright ownership and better short-term access options already. Now, let’s turn our attention to how self-driving might change the game.
In his April 2024 industry update, Scaling Self-driving Technology on the Path to Ubiquity, the CEO of Oxa, Gavin Jackson, wrote: “There’s disagreement over the sectors to focus on first, and no international consensus yet on what constitutes a safe autonomous vehicle system.
“Momentum, however, is picking up. The UK’s new Automated Vehicles Act will lead to regulations overseeing the in-use safety of vehicle fleets, and a host of other things.”
Two important takeaways there. First, the ubiquity; once self-driving tech is proven, it will be everywhere – from privately owned cars to vans, buses and HGVs. Second, the emphasis on fleet.
Self-driving fleets
To answer the question directly, large numbers of self-driving cars will be owned by robotaxi companies (those with a UK No User-in-Charge operator licence, as per the Law Commission’s recommendations). Which makes Uber’s recent investment in Wayve all the more interesting.
“Wayve is building a ‘general purpose’ driving Al that can power all levels of driving automation in any type of vehicle, anywhere in the world,” said CEO and inaugural Self-Driving Industry Award winner, Alex Kendall.
“I’m excited to be teaming up with Uber to massively ramp up our AI’s fleet learning, ensuring our AV technology is safe and ready for global deployment across Uber’s network. Together, we’re excited to work with automotive OEMs to bring autonomous driving technologies to consumers sooner.”
Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, added:“Uber and Wayve share a vision of reimagining mobility. Wayve’s advanced Embodied AI approach holds a ton of promise as we work towards a world where modern vehicles are shared, electric and autonomous.”
Shared vehicles, by their nature, are utilitarian, and rarely set pulses racing. That’s why experts like Steve Gooding, of the RAC Foundation, and Tom Stringer, Product Strategy Director at JLR, insist that self-driving will not signal the end of personal ownership, far from it.
“Are you really going to ditch all those bespoke choices, and the convenience of knowing the car is at your personal beck-and-call, because you’re going to be able to summon a self-driving vehicle?” Gooding asks.
Self-driving cars will clearly be an attractive proposition for those currently unable to drive. Ownership patterns will be different in urban and rural areas, and there could well be regulatory curveballs like road charging or incentives for multi-occupancy.
In any case, those with the deepest pockets will still treat themselves to amazing cars like the Rolls-Royce 103EX concept. For the majority, as with electric vehicles (EVs), fleet operators and leasing companies will shoulder much of the early adopter risk.
The luxurious Rolls-Royce 103EX concept with self-driving capabilities (credit: James Lipman)
Please note: the author produced an earlier version of this article for The Institute of the Motor Industry’s MotorPro magazine.
Cars Of The Future on an exceptional self-driving roundtable feat. road safety campaigner Meera Naran MBE and Oxa co-founder Prof Paul Newman CBE.
It featured independent road safety campaigner and trustee of Brake, Meera Naran MBE, self-driving expert and Chief Road Safety Adviser to National Highways, Dr Nick Reed, and senior representatives of Oxa including Autonomy Systems and Regulatory Expert, Bryn Balcombe, Director of Safety Assurance, Camilla Fowler, Head of Global Regulatory Affairs, Jamie Hodsdon, and co-founder and CTO, Professor Paul Newman.
To set the scene, numerous messages from friends ahead of the event referred to the likelihood of a crash on the demo – a timely reminder of the consumer confidence challenge. And here we had leading proponents of self-driving in the same room as someone who’s young son, Dev, was killed in a collision with a lorry on a smart motorway.
Independent road safety campaigner, Meera Naran MBE, had questions for Oxa
Naran, having also just had her first ever trip in a self-driving car, explained that Dev was passionate about technology, and cars in particular. “I see value in the potential of self-driving,” she said. “It means that, in 20 years’ time, my daughter, who is four, is going to be safer.” It wasn’t an average discussion. It was no holds barred…
Self-driving safety
PN: “We specialise in self-driving software – providing it to others, like the Beep shuttles in Florida – but we also run a small fleet of vehicles to prove our work in different environments.
“We think it is much smarter to assure a certain vehicle for a particular route, say the Number 7 bus, rather than claiming ‘We can drive everywhere’. From nowhere to everywhere overnight? That sounds like a stretch. Autonomy should run first where it fits best, and you get to ‘everywhere’ by doing lots of ‘somewheres’.
“Be open; admit that sometimes the technology will get it wrong, and design it to fail safely. Incidents like we saw with Cruise in San Francisco last year deserve transparency, an honest explanation. That’s why we have Oxa YellowBird, our canary in the autonomy coal mine, which independently monitors Oxa Driver to ensure driving remains careful and competent at all times.
Co-founder of Oxa, Prof. Paul Newman CBE, in discussion with Meera Naran
“YellowBird is all about explainability of Oxa Driver behaviour and is designed to support the AV Act requirement for in-use monitoring. The key question is: What data do you need to share with others to prove your vehicle is operating safely?
“There’s no intellectual property (IP) in the YellowBird output, but we will happily share data to demonstrate how and why events unfolded in a certain way. That has to be the price of entry to operate in this space. The safety bar has to be high. That’s what the public expect.”
NR: “Self-driving cars must be at least as safe as a good human driver, that’s enshrined in the AV Act, so we need a mechanism to hold them to account.”
Careful & Competent
CF: “The term ‘careful and competent’ has appeared in Road Safety Acts since the 1980s. There is some case law, but it has always been hugely subjective. Now, thanks to Labour and peer amendments ensuring its inclusion in the AV Act, we get to define what ‘careful and competent’ actually means for self-driving vehicles. This could deliver a step-change in road safety.”
JH: “Road safety is a global issue, but number of fatalities alone feels like a very blunt metric. The public expect AVs to be careful and competent, but what data do regulators need to demonstrate that? For example, the Highway Code says cars overtaking cyclists should leave a 1.5m gap, but sometimes it might be essential for the vehicle to breach that to avoid a collision. However, in those cases, it must provide data to explain why it made that decision and that’s what YellowBird is for.”
Oxa’s Bryn Balcombe with Neil Kennett on a self-driving test ride
BB: “In-use monitoring brings so many benefits. Not just blackbox recordings for crash investigation, as we see in aviation, but also for detecting and learning from near-miss events. As automotive transitions from a product industry to a service industry it’s clear that approval tests for the product safety will need to be supplemented with continual in-use monitoring for service safety – to ensure incidents that require grounding of a fleet can be detected and safety issues resolved before service resumes.”
MN: “I am encouraged by the focus on safety, and only using this for routes from A to B, as opposed to everywhere, sounds very sensible.”
PN: “That’s made my day. We call it route qualification. The other keys are transparency and explainability. When a fault occurs, you must provide evidence and demonstrate how you have fixed it.”
Oxa continue to make the case for increased mandatory data sharing to the UK government and at UNECE level. The fact they were so open with a journalist, an academic and a road safety campaigner speaks volumes.
E-Transit Minibus
As an added bonus, the last few hours of the day of were spent at nearby Culham Science Centre, part of the CCAV, Innovate and Zenzic-backed CAM Testbed UK network, and home to the Remote Applications in Challenging Environments (RACE) test facility.
There, we were given exclusive first sight of Oxa’s new E-Transit Minibus. With a background in motorsport engineering, project lead Holly Watson Nall explained that Oxa will operate the new service, as well as providing the vehicles, on a soon-to-be announced route covering both public and private roads.
“In the UK?” we asked, several times. Oxa would neither confirm nor deny, but it is right-hand drive so…
Neil Kennett, Meera Naran and Nick Reed with Oxa’s self-driving E-Transit Minibus
Cars Of The Future editor Neil Kennett goes self-driving in the UK, courtesy of Oxa.
At approximately 10.30am local time on Tuesday 13 August 2024, with an average left turn in a Ford Mondeo, I reached a momentous personal milestone. After publishing over 300,000 words on the subject, I finally got to ride in a self-driving car on public roads in the UK. Excitement level off the chart!
With autonomy systems expert Bryn Balcombe for company, the turn out of the Oxford business park was noteworthy only for the fact that the road wasn’t completely clear – there was oncoming traffic, but I’d have gone and the Oxa software agreed.
On-road self-driving
Within seconds we were taking the middle of three lanes up to a busy roundabout, pausing momentarily while an aggressive driver steamed up our inside. From there on in, it went remarkably smoothly. A-roads and B-roads, cars, vans, buses and HGVs, learner drivers, cyclists and pedestrians – all handled without fuss, nothing outrageous to report.
Oxa self-driving software – “Autonomy is available”
You begin by analysing every tiny decision, as if the car were taking its driving test. Yes, the technology is amazing, but most humans get from A to B multiple times a day, for years on end, without major incident, so that must mean we’re also pretty amazing, right?
Ross the cameraman confided afterwards that it was his first time in a self-driving car too. He agreed that the presence of ROSPA gold standard safety driver Tristan was reassuring, but overall felt very comfortable with the experience.
Oxa self-driving car with safety driver
So, there you have it; second top item on the bucket list, tick. Video to follow, along with details of an exceptional roundtable discussion and an exclusive first glimpse of Oxa’s new E-Transit Minibus.
Alex Bainbridge, Founder and CEO of Autoura, will once again be on the judging panel for the Self-Driving Industry Awards, focussed on commercialisation and customer experience
After selling online reservation service TourCMS in 2015, tourism entrepreneur Alex Bainbridge launched Autoura to build digital sightseeing products specifically for self-driving vehicles.
“I’m delighted to be involved in judging the Self-Driving Industry Awards again,” he said. “While the other judges have incredible technical expertise, I’m more focussed on successful commercialisation and the customer experience.
“These might be Cars of the Future awards, but for the tourism industry, particularly for Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) making decisions about vehicle purchases, this is a live issue today. Luxurious coaches pay for themselves over 7-15 years, and over that timescale we’re going to see widescale rollout of self-driving buses, smaller shuttles and cars.
Self-driving tourism
“From a tourist’s perspective, when you remove the driver, you need a new way to answer questions like: ‘What’s happening in town today?’ or ‘Where should we go for dinner?’. Our AI characters deliver tourism experiences both within vehicles and outside them, so they work for pedestrians and cyclists as well.
Sahra was the first self-driving tour guide created by Autoura
“We’re currently testing it as a consumer product in the US. We’re also in discussion with AV operators because distribution agreements would obviously make the whole thing more streamlined. Autoura now has 30 autonomous vehicle tourism experiences available to try using publicly available robotaxis such as Waymo in San Francisco.
“In the not-too-distant future, human-driven vehicles will become ever rarer and self-driving operators will be in competition with each other. They’ll have to differentiate their offerings, and that’s something the tourism industry has traditionally been very good at.
“Taking a sightseeing trip in a self-driving car, or a small electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, as opposed to a coach, is a huge change. The interaction can be much more personalised – high quality real-world experiences at a very affordable price point, all enabled by amazing connected and automated vehicle technologies.
“I look forward to highlighting those who’ve made the most progress across all vital areas, from software to regulation, since last year’s inaugural awards.”
Autoura – digital sightseeing products designed specifically for self-driving
In our Zenzic CAM Creator interview with Alex way back in 2020 he predicted “The transition to autonomous will start with CAVs running routes like buses”.
Last November we were delighted to present our inaugural Self-Driving Vehicle of the Year Award to Project CAVForth… a fleet of five single-decker, low-emission Stagecoach buses which have been taking fares in Scotland daily since May 2023.
