From the self-driving passenger shuttles of Project Harlander in Belfast, to the Westwell autonomous trucks at Felixstowe, UK ports are among the earliest adopters of commercial self-driving vehicles. Here, Richard Ballantyne OBE, Chief Executive of the British Ports Association, discusses their role in the ports of the future.
Richard Ballantyne OBE, Chief Executive of the British Ports Association
RB: “We’re the national trade association for ports, piers and harbours in the UK. Collectively, we represent around 400 facilities up and down the country, from small fishing and leisure ports to some of the UK’s biggest trade gateways.
“Depending on the metrics you use, around 95% of international trade comes through UK ports, with a 70% to 30% balance of imports to exports, in terms of the tonnages our sector handles. Ports are closely involved in car manufacturing. From the Humber to the West Country, the Solent to the Thames, we import components and finished vehicles, and export finished vehicles for sale elsewhere.
Self-driving supply chain
“It’s been a precarious time for the automotive sector. We’ve seen the threat of international tariffs on both finished cars and components like steel, but broadly we’re still upbeat about the sector. As we move increasingly to electric vehicles, and eventually to self-driving vehicles, we hope to be part of that supply chain solution.
“Finished cars transported on vehicle carriers are an example of ‘roll on, roll off’ (RORO) services. They are high value commodities and transporting them safely largely falls to the shipping industry, who we work very close with. We’ve seen an increase in risk assessments around different types of batteries, for example.
“As ports are generally big private sites, autonomous vehicles are of growing interest to our industry, probably first around cranes, plant and machinery, particularly in the ‘load on, load off’ (LOLO) environment.
“The container market is growing both for deep sea and short sea. It is basically a repeat activity so some ports, like Rotterdam, have moved to completely automated terminals. The cranes and tractors are all driverless, and you have control centres on-site. Others have adopted a hybrid approach.
Self-driving Shanghai Westwell Technology Q-Truck at Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk
“We’re a people industry. About 125,000 people are employed in UK ports. We’re also a relatively safe industry, so we always need to be mindful of changing risks. We’ve done a lot on safety and undoubtedly there will be benefits in moving towards more automated processes, whether that’s plant, machinery or vehicles, because you’re taking people out of a potentially risky environment.
“The UK ports industry is very fragmented and most ports operate with almost no subsidies. They’re self-funding so have to be measured with any major investments. It will take regulation or a compelling commercial reason, like the lack of skilled drivers to fuel any dramatic changes.
Road is King
“It will be interesting to see what policymakers do when it comes to putting driverless vehicles on our highways. Around 75% of all the freight that comes in and out of UK ports on the land side comes by HGV. The other methods – inland waterway or rail – tend to carry heavy commodities, like aggregates for the construction industry or biomass for power stations.
“For everything else, road is king, and that’s down to our geography. As mentioned earlier, we’re an import-driven country next to a big continent, Europe. We have lots of passenger ferry and freight services, and those vehicles come out immediately onto public highways. About 25-30% of international travellers use maritime ports, which is probably more than people think.
“For most ports, things like dedicated lanes for driverless HGVs are still very much part of their horizon scanning. I think we’ll soon see a lot more automated tugs and tractors though, with people being retrained in control centre jobs. It’s very much ‘ports of the future’ territory, plotting what those future skills will look like.”
As an official European AV Summit 2026 partner, we’re delighted to offer Cars Of The Future readers a substantial 25% discount on tickets.
The 5th edition of the prestigious industry event, “where leaders in autonomous mobility and AI unite to innovate, collaborate, and inspire new possibilities”, will be held in London – at the historic County Hall on the South Bank – on Thursday 19 March.
With Waymo and Wayve trailblazing deployments, the UK capital stands at the forefront of real-world autonomous mobility adoption, setting new standards for safety, sustainability, and accessibility.
AV leaders
Big-name speakers will include Lukas Neckermann of Neckermann Strategic Advisors, Guido Di Pasquale of PAVE Europe, Chris Moore of Apollo ibott, and Martyn Briggs of Bank of America, along with Self-Driving Industry Award winners Michael Talbot, Rebecca Posner and Meera Naran MBE.
Other event partners include law firm Hogan Lovell, charging specialist Rocsys, vision-based driving software provider Imagry, climate tech specialist Sustainable Ventures, and business networking company Bayern Innovativ.
For further info and bookings please Click Here, remembering to use code “Cars” to activate your exclusive Cars Of The Future 25% reduction.
European AV Summit 2026
We talk mapping, sensors, the Highway Code and more with Nirav Shah, senior engineer on our 2025 Self-Driving Project of the Year winner, evolvAD by Nissan.
As one of the few global vehicle manufacturers committing seriously to self-driving, we’ve been covering Nissan’s impressive autonomous testing for years – from the HumanDrive and ServCity projects, to the 50mph rural road demos of evolvAD at Cranfield.
Shortly after that amazing experience, we sat down with evolvAD’s senior engineer, Nirav Shah, to get the lowdown on the cutting-edge technologies involved.
Self-driving experts: The Nissan evolvAD engineering team incl, 3rd from right, Nirav Shah
With a Masters degree in Automotive Systems Engineering from automation hotbed the University of Michigan, he’s worked full-time on Nissan’s Autonomous Drive Systems (ADS) for the last eight years.
“I was on both the previous UK projects, ServCity and HumanDrive, and I’m the main software developer for evolvAD,” he confirmed, modestly brushing aside the suggestion that makes him one of the world’s most knowledgeable self-driving technicians.
“Basically, it’s the same as humans. When driving from A to B, we need to know where we are at the start. In the autonomous driving (AD) world, we call that localisation. It could be GPS coordinates or Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) coordinates – latitude, longitude and altitude.
“Once we know our starting point, we like to know what’s around us. For that, the AD vehicle uses all the sensors – LiDAR to understand the speed and direction of other objects, then cameras to establish whether it’s a car, bus, truck, pedestrian, cyclist, dog etc. Together they give a 360-degree view of what’s around us.
“Then comes the path planning stage, followed by the decision-making layer – whether to go ahead or wait – and finally the control layer – actuators in the steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire systems to steer, accelerate or brake.”
Self-driving sensors
The evolvAD car is kitted-out with 80 sensors, six LiDAR (four long- and two short-range), six cameras on the roof for object detection, plus the outward-looking in-cabin camera for ADAS from the production model.
Two of the roof cameras are designed specifically for traffic light situations – one with a wide lens for when the car is at the front, first to go, the other looking as far ahead as possible to inform stopping distances.
There are two antennas for GNSS positioning, all linked to computers cooled by the vehicle’s air con.
On the software side, there’s an urban stack, with the ability to wirelessly connect to infrastructure cameras, so it knows what’s ahead and can plan accordingly, but the car we rode in had the rural stack, optimised for higher speeds and grip. Soon, they’ll be combined.
Self-driving infographic: evolvAD, 2025
“The infrastructure connection is very powerful,” said Shah. “But the rural stack drives more confidently, controlling the braking force at each wheel to deliver a much more dynamic ride. That’s essential to deal with all the cambers, undulations and potholes around here.
“We collect a lot of data and simulate a lot of scenarios. We also do real-world testing at proving grounds such as Millbrook, including failure mode testing where we inject a fault to see if the vehicle responds as we expect it to.”
Self-driving interactions
During thousands of hours of testing, the team have witnessed all kinds of, er, interesting interactions.
“Some people think that it’s a police car and slow down, or a mapping car they might give a hand gesture to,” laughed Shah. “If they realise it is autonomous, they sometimes honk and try to encourage the safety driver to wave.
“We see the politeness of British people, for example, the flashing of lights to let somebody go. That’s something we need to address, in the sense that the public need to be educated that autonomous cars won’t react to that, because it’s not part of the highway code.
“Similarly, the AD car will go at 30 in a 30, not 33, and 20 in a 20. We’ve had somebody overtake us, gesticulating wildly, because we were doing exactly 20mph in a 20mph zone.
“We’ve come a long way from the early days when the software was a bit like a learner driver. Now it drives according to UK norms, with more assertiveness than they need in Japan or Silicon Valley. In London especially, if a pedestrian sees a gap they will just walk.
“The vision of the evolvAD project is to deliver connected and autonomous cars capable of driving in a wide range of environments. The challenges of operating in European rural areas are very different to cities, with a huge diversity of road structures, conditions and traffic types.
“We sometimes have to maintain quite high speeds to keep-up with traffic without becoming a hinderance. We believe we are the first and currently only AD vehicle that can do that.
“Particularly in areas where public transport has declined, we intend to offer a new, alternative, commercially viable means of transporting people and goods.
“There will be competitors trying to do similar, and that’s why ride comfort is key. We want people to choose Nissan because they know they’ll have a safe, comfortable journey, and get to their destination on time.”
Supported by the UK government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), Innovate UK, Zenzic and TRL, the £3.5m evolvAD project has now been extended “To provide critical insights to policymakers and urban planners to ensure a successful introduction of AD mobility services in the right way and at the right time”.
Nissan announced last year that it plans to offer this in Japan from 2027. After playing such a pivotal role in R&D, we eagerly await news of the UK launch.
Please note: a version of this article was first published in the Institute of the Motor Industry’s MotorPro magazine.
Cars Of The Future event report: UMP Parliamentary Reception, December 2025
Dedicated to “Improving lives by transforming travel”, UMP was established to represent all key modes of transport in the debate around the future of urban mobility. As well as Shoosmiths, other notable members include Stagecoach, Dott, Mott MacDonald and Brompton.
At their annual Parliamentary Reception in December, Fabian Hamilton MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Cycling and Walking, praised UMP for bringing together a unique mix of national, regional and local policymakers, alongside colleagues from the private and third sectors. “UMP has shown what good Public Private Partnership (PPP) looks like,” he said.
Self-driving presence
We’re pleased to report there was a strong self-driving presence, with representatives from UK leaders Transport for West Midlands (TFWM), Awards partner Intelligent Transport Systems UK (ITS UK), kerbside software specialist Appyway, and commercial robotaxi pioneer Waymo.
The star attraction, though, was a Scalextric track with Stagecoach bus and Brompton bike models by the man who built the Millennium Falcon.
Scalextric track at Urban Mobility Partnership Parliamentary Reception, December 2025
In their new “Automation: Progress with caveats” report, Shoosmiths partners Jonathan Smart, James Needham and Wayne Gibbard predict that: “Automation will continue to drive change across mobility, logistics and manufacturing this year.
“London is at the centre of the shift to autonomous driving, with robo-taxi trials from innovators like Waymo and Wayve already on city streets. For now, these vehicles still have supervisors on board, but the ambition is clear: fully autonomous taxis by the end of 2026.
“In logistics, self-driving lorries are set to become a core part of supply chains, working alongside electrified fleets and direct-to-consumer delivery models.”
UMP members will be at the forefront as UK rollout accelerates.
A paradigm shift in SDV software – the philosophy behind QNX’s Self-Driving Industry Award winning platform
Niko Boeker, Director of Automotive Business Development at QNX, a division of BlackBerry, gives us the lowdown on Alloy Kore, the groundbreaking platform for SDVs, which won them our 2025 Self-Driving Industry Award for Software.
Niko Boeker, Director of Automotive Business Development at QNX
Q: What is ‘the siftware problem’?
NB: “In the corridors of automotive engineering, a somewhat derisive term has come to define the industry’s predicament: Siftware. It captures the state of modern vehicle development, where software integration is so fragmented and porous that critical elements like safety protocols and security patches slip through the gaps; where cobbling together disparate electronic control units (ECUs) takes precedence over innovation.
“The implications are far from metaphorical. They are measured in missed deadlines and hemorrhaging balance sheets. A Start of Production (SOP) delay is not just an inconvenience; it’s a fiscal nightmare. According to PwC analysis, a launch schedule that slips by 12 months can inflict losses of up to $200 million on an OEM, while suppliers face their own multi-million-dollar risks.
“Deloitte says that teams commonly pour up to 40% of their entire development budget into the resource drain of software integration. This friction turns what should be a seamless sprint into a slog, with development timelines often stretching beyond 40 months – a pace dangerously out of sync with consumer tech expectations.
“A 2025 QNX survey of automotive software developers and engineering VPs found that the complexity of integration is one of their biggest challenges. According to TTControl, establishing a process that meets ISO 26262 functional safety standards can demand over 5,000 hours of specialised labour. This is time that could have been much better spent building the features and end-user applications that drive customer loyalty and value.”
Q: Why do you describe Alloy Kore as ‘a paradigm shift’?
NB: “Alloy Kore is QNX and Vector’s bid to free the industry from the fragmentation trap. As the sector pivots aggressively toward SDV, the philosophy behind it is comparable to construction. Rather than asking architects to bake their own bricks and mix their own cement, the platform provides a pre-integrated, pre-validated substructure.
“By combining the safety-certified QNX operating system with Vector’s standardised middleware, the platform offers a ready-made baseline that complies with ISO 26262 up to ASIL D, and ISO 21434 security standards, right out of the box.
“It creates a standardised abstraction layer that supports a wide range of hardware targets, liberating OEMs from vendor lock-in and allowing them to switch silicon providers without tearing down their software stack.
“Moving to a unified platform offers benefits that ripple through the entire vehicle lifecycle. First, it enables a leaner vehicle. Because the OS and middleware are optimised to work in concert, rather than stitched together as an afterthought, the software requires less computational brute force. This allows automakers to achieve desired performance levels using less expensive hardware, directly cutting the Bill of Materials.
“Second, this strategy eliminates the inefficiencies of fragmented stacks and redundant ECU projects. Instead of treating every high-performance ECU as its own software island, OEMs can reuse a common validated platform across domains and models, freeing engineering capacity for innovation.”
Q: What does this mean for the automotive industry going forward?
NB: “Ultimately, the transition to a foundational platform represents a maturation of the automotive industry. It allows engineering leaders to stop functioning as crisis managers and return to their role as architects. The previous, fragmented era was perhaps an inevitable growing pain of the SDV revolution. With the arrival of foundational platforms, the industry finally has the tools to leave this behind.
“By trusting a verified platform to handle the complex, non-differentiating layers of the stack, automakers can redirect their best talent toward what truly matters: creating the unique, defining experiences that will drive the next wave of mobility.”
Meet the local authority experts bringing our 2024 and 2025 Self-Driving Vehicle of the Year winners to public roads near you
Ahead of the publication of an eagerly awaited paper on UK local government perspectives on self-driving, we spoke to two of the report’s authors about their experiences to date and the journey to widespread adoption.
Daniel Clarke, Head of Technology and Innovation at the Greater Cambridge Partnership, and Matthew Shelton, Future Transport – Services and Technologies Lead at Transport for West Midlands, are both members of the newly-formed Automated Mobility Network (AMN) – a cohort of Local Authority (LA) representatives committed to “Ensuring the development of safe, sustainable, equitable and appropriate CAM products and services that benefit the communities they may come to serve or impact”.
Self-driving expert Daniel Clarke, Head of Technology and Innovation at the Greater Cambridge Partnership
Dan first, how did you get involved in CAM and self-driving?
DC: “The Greater Cambridge Partnership is a collection of local authorities in the Cambridge area. The program I run looks at how innovation and technology can support the wider transport program. As part of that, in 2016, we were approached by the University of Cambridge, who were looking at automated vehicles. We had conversations specifically around the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, which is a segregated piece of bus infrastructure, about making it a testing ground for this emerging technology.
“We very much focus on public transport, so it aligned with the work that we were doing. We got some funding through CCAV to produce a business case. We did some work with the Wellcome Trust as well, about linking their campus to a local railway station. We then applied for government funding with Aurrigo to do some actual trials. We were successful in that and we ran three of their shuttles out of a park and ride in Cambridge, into the West Cambridge university campus.
“They ran in mixed traffic with bikes, scooters, cars, the full gamut, and carried passengers. Although it was slightly curtailed because of Covid, it proved to us that people had an appetite to use these types of vehicles as part of the public transport system.
“We then went into a further round of funding with a company called Conigital. Unfortunately, that collapsed, so we went out back out into the market to look for new partners. We’re now working with Alexander Dennis and Fusion Processing. That was attractive to us because they had experience of running full-sized buses, and that’s where we want to be – it’s a sweet spot and we now have Whippet Coaches as our operator, plus some other organizations – dRISK and IPG, who are doing some virtual testing, and Anthrometric who have been doing some work for us around human factors, people with protected characteristics.
Self-Driving Industry Awards Vehicle of the Year 2025 – the all-new Enviro100AEV bus by Alexander Dennis and Fusion Processing – will be on-road in Cambridge
“We’re currently running a pilot with one vehicle, out of Madingley Road park and ride into Eddington, which is a new housing development, and then on to the West Cambridge campus. We will shortly be launching two brand new Alexander Dennis Enviro100AEV buses, which will run between the Babraham Road park and ride, the Cambridge medical campus (which is a really complex site with three hospitals, lots of blue lights), and then on to Trumpington park and ride.
“The purpose is to get more miles under our belt, to understand the operating cases, to push the technology so we get less and less interventions… thinking about how they could, eventually, when the legislation catches up, run in a driverless mode. That project runs to the end of March, and then we’ll be looking for additional funding to push on to a commercial deployment. That’s our ultimate goal: To get these things deployed commercially as part of the public transport system.”
Self-driving expert Matthew Shelton, Future Transport – Services and Technologies Lead at Transport for West Midlands
Same question to Matt, how did you get involved in CAM and self-driving?
MS: “A big focus for us at TFWM at the moment is obviously the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) World Congress, which will be held in Birmingham in 2027.
“We’ve been in CAM for over 10 years now, from the UK Autodrive project, with JLR in Coventry, through to the birth of Midlands Future Mobility. That’s our testbed project, which involves installing CAM infrastructure on nearly 300km of urban, interurban and rural roads across Solihull, Birmingham, Coventry, and Warwickshire.
“It involved a consortium including WMG, Costain, Vodafone, AVL, WIG, Amey, Coventry University, National Highways, Immense and Horiba Mira. Our role is really that of infrastructure owner and operator. It involved us putting out lots of roadside units (RSUs) – G5 wireless units, magnetometers, radar, Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras, weather stations, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) correction equipment – all to facilitate the progress of autonomy.
“There’s also Convex, the digital testbed, which was intended to become a repository for data for people wishing to test with autonomous vehicles. Those two things happened at the same time. Then Covid struck and the industry lost a bit of momentum.
“When we speak about CAM and CAVs, we tend to speak more about autonomy, but the connected part is important as well. One initiative involved working with the M6 toll and National Highways (NH) on in-vehicle messaging, investigating whether we could get messages out on the M6 Toll without having to put up gantries. That spawned a further project – developing an API with all the data that local authorities have, plus NH, creating trigger points so that once a user reaches a pre-set point they get an in-vehicle message with information about journey times, local incidents etc. The scope is very wide.
“We also ran a study alongside that to investigate how the users felt about these messages, because we were very aware that they could be distracting or irritating. The work is ongoing to add more functionality, but we have the tool now.
“Going back to the autonomy part, we also took part in Autoplex, a collaborative R&D project looking into how autonomous vehicles interact with other vehicles at blind merge. It uses radar and G5 units to ping messages about how to merge safely.
“We’ve also been working on various Horizon Europe projects, including Sinfonica on the public perception of autonomy, looking into how vulnerable users would access automated vehicles, the whole spectrum of accessibility. That consisted of lots of interviews, focus groups and stakeholder workshops – a three-year piece of work which has just finished, and we’re now part of the sister project, Cultural Road, which continues the theme in much more detail, covering various demographics within the West Midlands, and how they affect the understanding of barriers to adoption.
“We’ve been part of various feasibility studies in the first two rounds of CCAV funding, and will also be part of the third, which is ongoing. That will explore alternative routes –– new public transport routes where autonomy could potentially provide a low-cost solution.
“We’re starting to see the technology price come down, so the business case for things like the Solihull and Coventry Automated Links Evolution (SCALE) deployment project gets stronger. Again, we’re the operator, so we not only sourced staff but also did a lot of baseline interviews to gauge public sentiment. We held focus group days with Motability, where they brought some of their clients to experience the vehicle.
“We’ve also been doing desktop studies into the practicalities of new roles which came out of the AV Act, such as the Authorised Self-Driving Entity (ASDE). With the introduction of bus franchising into the West Midlands, we see autonomy as an integral part of future procurement frameworks.”
What are some of the most challenging aspects you’ve encountered as we look to remove the safety driver in 2026?
DC: “For us, some of the biggest challenges have been less about the technology and more around running automated vehicle pilots in an urban environment with multiple landowners. Putting in place legal agreements (licenses to operate on that land), and ensuring the domain works, has taken a long time.
“Bearing in mind that the aim is to run a popular service, some of the hardest questions to come out of our deliberative workshops have been around perception. How do we give people the confidence to use these vehicles?
“As we begin to expand out, looking at things like rural routes, there are questions like: How do we make people feel safe at night if there’s no driver? How do we ensure there’s equity of access? How do we get people on and off the vehicles?
“The technology still has some issues, but it has come a long way and will continue to evolve. Ever since our pilot with Aurrigo, several years ago now, that’s been less of a concern. The early running has given us confidence that the technology will get there.
“The next step is taking out the safety driver. That will really bring to a head some of the issues around passenger interaction. Then there are issues around the infrastructure.
We can’t start building private 5G networks all over the place, so we need remote operations which are able to utilise the existing networks. Taking out the driver makes the business case a whole lot more interesting, but it presents a whole new set of challenges for us as a local authority.”
The SCALE team with our 2024 Self-Driving Industry Awards Vehicle of the Year, the Ohmio LIFT shuttle
MS: “I agree pretty much entirely with what Dan’s mentioned there. I think as local authorities we’re not so concerned with the technology itself. We’ve got confidence in it. What we’re concerned with is bringing the users with us from day one. That’s what we’ve tried to do with SCALE. When we conducted the initial surveys, 65-70% of the people we interviewed had very little trust in the technology. Winning that trust is a challenge. It needs familiarisation. The more people see the vehicles out there, the more trust they will have.
“Consistency is so important. For the last few years, we’ve gone through periods of testing where people see the vehicles out there, then periods where they don’t. There might be safety checks going on behind the scenes, or a lull in funding, but the public don’t see that. We need to have vehicles constantly riding around to get that continuous effect – an increasing positive impact.
“We don’t see this yet as a replacement for traditional bus services, we see it probably for last mile or campus environments first. It has its own use cases. We see it as another mode in the transport toolbox. The real challenge is trying to make the business case stack up. Taking the safety driver out is meant to help with that. We know it’s not going to be easy. The technology cost is still really high. If you take out the safety driver, can those people be redeployed as remote operators? Is it better to still have a member of staff on board, to add that element of security and safety?”
Finally, tell us about the new Automated Mobility Network…
DC:“After we were awarded the deployment funding, we found it really useful to chat to other people doing similar things in different parts of the country. Initially we would meet up informally at CCAV events, to exchange findings, lessons learned, barriers, generally help each other to navigate the competitions. That gradually turned into a monthly or bi-weekly phone call. Now it has been formalised into the Automated Mobility Network (AMN). It’s testament to the local authorities working in this area, the way we’ve fostered this kind of collaborative spirit.”
MS: “Between us, we’ve got a lot of information and some really good use cases. We want to feed that advice through to other relevant bodies, like Zenzic, and to provide a central repository that other local authorities can visit to get information. TFWM has published previous studies on our website, so it’s available to everyone. The role of local authorities in things like robotaxi licensing promises to be very interesting. A key aspiration for the AMN is to be more collaborative nationwide, all aiming for the same outputs and achievements.”
So, there you have it! The views from the local authority experts running both our 2024 and 2025 Self-Driving Vehicle of the Year award winners. Special thanks to Colin Maltby for organising. Please note: the AMN report we mentioned at the start has now been published. We’ll bring you a separate story on that soon, but you can read it in full here.
Highlights from and reaction to the Self-Driving Industry Awards 2025
A huge thank you to everyone who helped make the third annual Cars of the Future Self-Driving Industry Awards the biggest and best yet!
Supported by an array of prestigious partners – BSI, CCAV, Cenex, ITS UK, PAVE UK, Tech UK and Zenzic – along with our charity partner this year, BEN – it brought together inspirational global leaders and showcased a spectacular selection of automated vehicles.
Special thanks to Chris Curtis MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Self-Driving, who presented the flagship Vehicle of the Year award to the all-new Enviro100AEV bus by Alexander Dennis and Fusion Processing.
Check out this highlights reel from the presentation ceremony at the Turner Contemporary in Margate on Friday 24 October 2025…
For more on #sdia25 – including a full list of winners – please click here
Self-Driving Media Coverage
Here’s some selected media coverage of #sdia25. In particular, we were very proud to display such a great range of vehicles, including the Enviro100AEV, the evolvAD project Nissan LEAF, the Ohmio LIFT shuttle and the Starship delivery robot.The feedback was universally positive, as you can see…
A couple of weeks ago we signposted the Beam Connectivity webinar on the EU Data Act as a chance learn more about one of the most significant recent pieces of CAM-related European legislation.
The webinar itself – full title “The EU Data Act and the Extended Vehicle API: compliance, cybersecurity and data monetisation” – was certainly an eye-opener.
Beam’s Director of Product Marketing, Dr Richard Oxland, began by setting out how the Act mandates a consent-based model for sharing data generated by a vehicle with the user, the vehicle owner, at the centre.
“Importantly, it specifies tightly under what circumstances the data can be accessed, and for what purposes,” he said. “It became generally applicable on 12 September 2025, affecting all devices which generate connected data, not just cars! The Act has major implications for UK businesses that bring connected device products to market in the EU, or use EU data.”
Such organisations must:
Comply with access rights for users of connected products.
Comply with obligations on data processing service providers.
Ensure contracts entered after this date meet new rules on unfair contract terms.
Make data available to public sector bodies where there is an “exceptional need”.
Noting that micro and small companies are currently exempt, and medium-sized companies still have a year to comply, Oxland warned that those found to be in breach can face substantial sanctions – a fine of up to €20m or 4% of global revenues. Ouch!
VM web services
For vehicles manufacturers who need to comply, Beam’s most recent product launch is a plug and play solution for all the activities that must be carried out under the EU Data Act.
It is a set of web services which provide not only “Auditability of consent”, but also the ability to “Create value by combining, aggregating or processing the raw data into consumable products”.
Beam: EU Data Act an innovation and value opportunity for CAM
Beam Co-Founder and CTO, Rob Potter, then delved into the technical details. “Today’s connected road vehicles generate enormous amounts of data that may be valuable to someone,” he said.
It might be personal data from infotainment selections, video from on-board cameras, or information about a driver’s braking and acceleration preferences.
CAM use cases
You can imagine all kinds of use cases – from sharing real-time info about road condition with other cars nearby, to insurance models based on real-world individual driver data.
As a partner to their CVaaS platform, Beam have implemented an Extended Vehicle (ExVe) API, using the new ISO 20078 ExVe web services standard for road vehicles.
This provides an EU Data Act-compliant mechanism where vehicle data can be packaged up into valuable products and with which user consent is managed.
Third-party developers can request consent for a particular ‘container’ of data, such as core telemetry, with debugging and error handling bundled in.
Oxland then returned to summarise the key points:
The EU Data Act is already enforceable for most organisations selling into the EU.
Requirements include making data available to users on request.
Users can give consent to third parties and this must be facilitated.
ISO 20078 defines a standard way for automotive manufacturers to comply.
Last, and perhaps most interestingly…
Data services offer an opportunity for innovation and monetisation.
Beam: Key EU Data Act-compliant CAM stakeholders
There was just about time for a quick Q&A. One attendee asked about the definition of “real-time”. Potter replied that “in technical terms it could be nanoseconds” but practically should be considered under “reasonable endeavours”.
And “What do Beam consider the most pressing cybersecurity concern?” Potter asserted that “A well-implemented API should be secure” but noted that care must be taken with anonymised datasets as “with enough data, they can be de-anonymised”.
Plenty of food for thought, then, for third party app developers hot on the many fast-emerging ExVe opportunities.
A futuristic array of automated vehicles went on display at the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate on Friday (24 October 2025) as part of the third annual Self-Driving Industry Awards.
Chris Curtis MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Self-Driving, presented the flagship Vehicle of the Year award to the all-new Enviro100AEV bus by Alexander Dennis.
Using the CAVStar automated drive system by Bristol-based Fusion Processing, two of these buses (with a safety driver) will go into service in Cambridge within a matter of weeks.
Project of the Year went to evolvAD, led by Nissan, for demonstrating aptitude in dealing with speed bumps, mini-roundabouts, width restrictions and oncoming traffic, as well as rural lanes with extreme cambers and blind bends.
Ohmio won in Consumer Service for its shuttle services at the NEC in Birmingham and Central Milton Keynes. While the inaugural Fleet Operator Award went to Starship for making over a million small deliveries in the UK.
In the individual award categories, Professor Missy Cummings was crowned Person of the Year 2025 for highlighting the dangers of over-reliance on camera-based vision.
Joel Johnson (AKA YouTuber JJRicks) won Consumer Champion for documenting Waymo’s progress in America. Michael Talbot was named Industry Legend for his role in developing CAM Testbed UK, our world-class R&D ecosystem.
Self-driving winners
Speaking on behalf of the Awards judging panel, Carsofthefuture.co.uk editor, Neil Kennett, said:“As usual, our applicants nominated some fantastic people and products for the headline Awards. I’m delighted we could bring them together to give a perfect snapshot of self-driving in 2025 – a range of vehicles either already in service or soon to be, many of them designed and built right here in the UK.”
Supported by partners BSI, Cenex, CCAV, ITS UK, PAVE UK, Tech UK and Zenzic, along with charity partner, BEN, the event was again hosted by Jim Carey, and the judging panel included Mark Cracknell of Zenzic, Alex Bainbridge of Autoura, Dr Nick Reed of Reed Mobility, and Dr Martin Dürr of Dromos.
Here’s the full list of 2025 Self-Driving Industry Award winners:
Vehicle of the Year: Enviro100AEV
Project of the Year: evolvAD by Nissan
Person of the Year: Professor Missy Cummings
Industry Legend: Michael Talbot
Fleet Operator: Starship
Consumer Champion: Joel Johnson, AKA JJRicks
Consumer Service: Ohmio
Aftermarket: Silvera Automotive Solutions
Design: Fusion Processing
Hardware: Angoka
Insurance: Apollo ibott
Legal: Shoosmiths
Research: Autinno
Software: QNX, a division of Blackberry
Testing: Karsan
Trust: Aribo
V2X: Beam Connectivity
Vehicle of the Year
Enviro100AEV bus at the Self-Driving Industry Awards in Margate, October 2025
We were delighted to present our flagship Self-Driving Vehicle of the Year Award to The Enviro 100 AEV by Alexander Dennis and Fusion Processing. The reaction to the unveiling of this all-new ‘small big bus’, at last month’s Cenex Expo, made up the judges’ minds. It is best in class. Enhanced accessibility. Reduced emissions. Reliable and comfortable public transport.
Project of the Year
evolvAD Nissan LEAF at the Self-Driving Industry Awards in Margate, October 2025
We were delighted to present our Self-Driving Project of the Year Award to evolvAD by Nissan, in collaboration with Connected Places Catapult, SBD Automotive and TRL. Their vision was ambitious: To deliver connected and autonomous vehicles capable of driving in a wide range of environments, and to nurture a domestic supply chain capable of sustaining solutions for both the UK and for export. See our recent evolvAD test ride.
Consumer Service
Ohmio LIFT shuttle at the Self-Driving Industry Awards in Margate, October 2025
We were delighted to present our Consumer Service Award to Ohmio. Already delivering passenger services at the NEC in Birmingham, and Central Milton Keynes, they’ve given thousands of people their first taste of self-driving. See our recent Ohmio test ride.
Fleet Operator
Starship delivery robot at the Self-Driving Industry Awards in Margate, October 2025
We were delighted to present our inaugural Self-Driving Fleet Operator Award to Starship. They operate not only the largest autonomous delivery fleet in the UK, but in the world.With 2,000 robots globally, this last mile specialist has made over a million deliveries in the UK alone, serving communities in Milton Keynes, Northamptonshire, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
Person of the Year
We were delighted to name Professor Missy Cummings our Self-Driving Industry Person of the Year for 2025. A former US Navy fighter pilot, now Director of Autonomy and Robotics at George Mason University, maximising self-driving safety is her life’s mission. See her recent presentation to PAVE UK in London.
Industry Legend
Self-Driving Industry Legend: Michael Talbot, October 2025
Recently named Head of CAM Industrial Policy in the Automotive Unit at the Department for Business and Trade, we were delighted to present Michael Talbot with our prestigious Self-Driving Industry Legend Award. See his contribution to the recent CAM Pathfinder launch event.
Consumer Champion
We were delighted to present our Consumer Champion Award, celebrating outstanding public service by an individual, to Joel Johnson, AKA JJRicks. Our youngest winner of any award to date, since 2020, this YouTuber has been documenting on-road self-driving operations in Phoenix, Arizona. See our recent story on his most incredible Waymo moments.
Self-driving first!
Please forgive the geek out, but perhaps our favourite moment of the day was seeing the Starship robot boarding the Ohmio LIFT shuttle – self-driving interaction!
Starship robot on the Ohmio LIFT shuttle at the Self-Driving Industry Awards in Margate, October 2025
More to follow…
Cars of the Future self-driving event report: Technology Books for Children at House of Commons, 13 October 2025
Building on the success of her forward-thinking children’s books, notably 2024’s The Digital Adventures of Ava and Chip: Self-Driving Car, Beverly Clarke MBE invited us to Parliament on Monday to celebrate the launch of a new book, The Tech Career Coach For Teens.
While the book itself is brilliant, packed with top tips and relatable real-life success stories, there is a bigger picture – helping young people become better informed and more engaged digital citizens.
The automotive industry is no stranger to skills gaps, in electric vehicle (EV) and advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) maintenance and repair, for example. To address this, the charity Clarke founded, Technology Books for Children, encourages kids to see tech as fun.
Self-driving skills
The two MPs in attendance – Dawn Butler, MP for Brent East in London, and Tony Vaughan, MP for Folkestone and Hythe – shared their own experiences with fast-evolving tech, and reaffirmed their commitment to inspiring the next generation.
L-R: Dawn Butler MP with Tony Vaughan MP, the Technology Books for Children team, and Mohammed Younes of Aureos Energy with Beverly Clarke MBE, author of The Digital Adventures of Ava and Chip: Self-Driving Car
Having worked as a computer programmer, Butler highlighted the importance of cybersecurity in the age of AI. Vaughan, a lawyer by trade, highlighted the growing importance of information science qualifications.
Clarke then took centre stage, reflecting on the magic of reading in stimulating the imagination, and praising the expertise of her co-authors – Rebecca Franks, co-founder of Flip Computing, and computer scientist, Dr Tracy Gardner – along with Trustees Sarah Zaman and Abena Akuffo-Kelly.
“The UK tech sector is already growing at three times the rate of the rest of the economy,” said Clarke. “Tech is where the jobs are going to be – in AI, online safety, robotics, and new areas that don’t even exist yet. By encouraging children to read tech books for pleasure, we’re helping to make digital literacy a key part of their learning journey.”
Following short presentations by the aforementioned Trustees, came a Teen Panel – firsthand, no-nonsense appraisals of the current shortcomings in tech education in secondary schools.
They also agreed that they’d love to try programming small autonomous robots in the classroom, something Kenneth Clarke of Silvera is working to make happen. Watch this space!
The Digital Adventures of Ava and Chip: Self-Driving Car by Beverly Clarke MBE
