Tag: #Self-driving

On Wednesday 7 May, we were delighted to attend the Self-Driving Vehicles All-Party Parliamentary Group’s Road to Growth event at Portcullis House, Westminster.

As usual, there were representatives from across the transport ecosystem, with legal services and the insurance industry particularly well represented this time.

Opening the session, Self-Driving APPG Chair and Labour Growth Group Co-Chair, Chris Curtis MP, called on the government to be more nimble and agile in pursuit of global technology leadership.

He then handed over to the expert panellists: David Wong, Senior Technology and Innovation Manager at The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), and Sarah Gates, Head of Public Policy at Wayve.

Self-driving AI

Describing automated driving as “an application of AI at its finest”, Wong highlighted 2023 SMMT research, funded by Innovate UK, showing that that the market for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) could be worth £66 billion in the UK by 2040, creating 342,000 jobs and preventing 60,000 serious accidents.

“As an industry, we are fully supportive,” he said. “We now need to take the leap to commercial deployments on our roads.”

Pointing to three Ps – profit, people, and the planet – he urged swift action on: 1) Regulation to enable advanced trials, taking out the safety driver; 2) Strategic investment to build the business case and support manufacturing in the UK; and 3) Public education.

Noting that it is almost exactly a year since the AV Act received Royal Assent, Gates explained how London-based Wayve has grown from an AI startup to a global company with 600+ employees.

Backed by Nvidia and Microsoft, it is now licensing its software to major vehicle manufacturers. Notably, Nissan announced last month that its 2027 ProPILOT system will include Wayve’s AI Driver.

UK timescale

Asked by Curtis about the cybersecurity risk of malevolent forces potentially seizing control of an entire fleet of self-driving vehicles, Gates pointed to the robustness of UN Regulation 155, which focuses on the cybersecurity of all vehicles.

There is growing frustration among self-driving leaders that the tech is ready now, already being rolled out elsewhere, yet the UK timescale seems to be slipping.  

“It takes real ministerial push to speed that up,” said Gates. “We’ve been consulting for six years!”

Meanwhile, Waymo alone is now providing 260,000 rides per week in America, increasing safety and accessibility for ever more willing customers. 

The current lead exhibition at the Turner Contemporary art gallery in Margate, venue for The Self-Driving Industry Awards, highlights the incredible history of campaigns for cleaner and more accessible transport, among other great causes.

Curated by artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen, “Resistance” sets out to tell forgotten stories of how ordinary people fought for change between 1903 and 2003.

We Want Clean Air

For us, two of the most eye-catching images are by Henry Grant, detailing the We Want Clean Air protest and showing the grim levels of smog in central London in 1956.

Here at CARS OF THE FUTURE we’ve noticed an increasing appreciation of how connected and automated mobility (CAM) can accelerate the transition to net zero.

For example, in the cutting-edge self-driving and clean fuel technologies on show at Cenex Expo 2024.

We’re delighted to announce that we’re partnering with them once again for Cenex Expo 2025 at UTAC Proving Ground, Millbrook, in September – registration open now!

As Ian Constance, CEO of the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) and Zenzic, told CAM Innovators 2025: “CAM and net-zero are on different tracks which I believe will converge thanks to CAM’s potential to go beyond the vehicle, to tear up ownership models.”

We Want Accessible Transport

Another stunning shot was taken by Brenda Price, in 1989, showing members of The Campaign for Accessible Transport (CAT) trying to board a bus in Whitehall.

For our part, we’ll continue to showcase the fantastic work of organisations such as the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RiDC) in ensuring that self-driving does indeed become a “transformative technology for a lot of disabled people”.

We did, of course, present our 2024 Design Award jointly to TRL and the RiDC for their ground-breaking project to support the development of inclusive automated transport technologies and services.

See this short film, funded by the Motability Foundation, on the needs, perceptions, and challenges faced by disabled people:

Project participant, Kirsty, said: “I’ve been disabled since about 2008. My condition causes degradation of my nervous system. I use a power chair, which fits my particular needs, and I use public transport a lot.

“Access ramps need to be tested not just for one kind of wheelchair, but for a few varieties. For me, this one was absolutely fine. I could get in fairly easily because compared to most existing buses the door is wider and they’ve been generous with the aisle space. I’m quite practiced at it, though, and I could see the difficulties that others had, so it does need changes.

“Pretty much everyone will become disabled eventually. If you live long enough, you’ll get to a point where you’re going to struggle with mobility. By designing for all of us, you’re helping everybody, including your future self.

“You want either a bus driver or attendant there when you’re on your own and you’re vulnerable already. That’s my worry about completely driverless vehicles. The ideal accessible autonomous vehicle for me is one where I can turn up, press a button, and someone will come out. I can tell it where I want to go and have a stress-free journey.”

Self-Driving Industry Awards

Entries for The Self-Driving Industry Awards 2025 open at 9am UK-time on Tuesday 1 July and we look forward to welcoming the winners to Margate to enjoy what JMW Turner called ‘the loveliest’ skies in Europe.

The annual Zenzic CAM Innovators’ Day at The Institution of Engineering and Technology in London is always a great occasion, an opportunity to take the temperature of UK self-driving.

If 2024 was all about the business opportunity, this was the year of economic reality – of major trials coming to fruition, increasing confidence in the tech, notable successes abroad, and a readiness (an imperative, even) to accelerate rollout here in the UK.

While there were plenty of new faces on-stage and in the audience, our host was the familiar figure of industry legend Professor Paul Newman CBE, co-founder of Oxa.

Reflecting briefly on the last 12 months – DeepSeek, tumbling sensor costs, a new UK government and ‘new world order’ – he introduced Professor Sarah Sharples, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Transport.

Sharples praised the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) as an “outstanding model” of cross-department working, highlighted the 1,600 UK road deaths last year – “a Grenfell every two weeks” – and the responsibility “of people in this room to deliver on the impact of the AV Act”.

Pressed by Newman on which body will regulate UK self-driving – the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) or the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) – there was no concrete answer, but perhaps a clue in that “We need a revolution in the MOT”. The DVSA then?

UK self-driving on schedule?

Next up was Mark Cracknell, Program Director at Zenzic, who nutshelled the key challenge of moving “from surviving to thriving”. He noted that the UK was “there or there abouts” in terms of hitting the milestones set out in the CAM roadmaps, first to 2030 and then to 2035, driven by government and industry partnerships.

“Where will Waymo and Baidu look to deploy next?” he asked, and “What does this mean for our home players?” Pertinent questions indeed.

There followed an entertaining bilateral: Newman and Opteran co-founder David Rajan discussing the relative merits of the latter’s neuromorphic foundation model, which presents insect brain modelling as an alternative to data centres.

“Silicon Valley companies have been trying for years to build a drone which can fly round any house, and they can’t because every house is different,” said Rajan. “Bees are amazing decisionmakers with incredible spatial awareness. Our software can drive using a Blackberry Pi.” Newman agreed “there are different ways to do AI” but wasn’t entirely convinced!

CAM and net zero

Before the morning break, Ian Constance, CEO of the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) and Zenzic, set the scene for a panel discussion on CAM and net zero. “They are on different tracks which I believe will converge thanks to CAM’s potential to go beyond the vehicle, to tear up ownership models,” he said.

The panel, chaired by the APC’s Rik Adams, featured Mike Looney of Caterpillar, Matthew Butters of the British Aviation Group, Sarah Windrum of Horiba Mira, and Jim Hutchinson of Self-Driving Industry Award-winner, Fusion Processing.

Butters emphasised the importance of safety and security. Windrum described self-driving as “a gamechanger”. Looney highlighted studies showing a 30% fuel saving for AVs over human drivers.

“The more you can make AV services commercially viable, the more you can get people out of their cars and into buses, which is great for net zero,” said Hutchinson.

“How and when to scale is a judgement call. The questions used to be about the technology, but that barrier is coming down because people can see it working. The safety and security can be demonstrated, and there’s growing evidence of a commercial return.”

While others were having a caffeine injection, KPMG’s Jenny Millard gave us the lowdown on their work for the SMMT and Automotive Council on commercial readiness across eight sectors. The headline is mining within 18 months and public transport by 2030. More on that another day.

Regulatory balance

Back in the main theatre, Ben Gardner, of law firm Shoosmiths, introduced a section on ‘The regulatory balancing act’ – safety v costs, accountability v bureaucracy, protection v innovation.

The subsequent panel, moderated by Rakhi Jain of Motability Operations, featured Steve Kendall of the DVSA, Yunus Jabalpurwala of Honda R&D Europe, George Lawley of Marsh McLennan, and Marty Zekas of CCAV.

“We need input from insurance on how to make the jump from conventional vehicles to AVs,” said Zekas. Responding, Lawley said: “We have seen government introduce sophisticated regulation at pace before, and we need that now.”

The risk of being left behind on the global stage was mentioned more than once. “CAM is within the government’s growth mission,” Zekas reassured them. “Developing options for testing without a safety driver in the near future.”

Closing the morning session, Paula Claytonsmith, Chief Executive of the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG), praised the unique mix of speakers.

Lunch included a delicious deconstructed crumble and a wide-ranging chat with Matthew Butters.

“A challenge of airports growing post-Covid is the need to transport more people from further away, so AVs seem like a good solution,” he said. “Then there’s the potential for airside servicing vehicles.” Again, we’ll bring you more on that another day.

Hard-won victories

Any fears of an after-lunch lull were quickly dispelled as Mike Dawson of Project Harlander detailed impressive progress at one of the UK’s leading self-driving trials – the last mile passenger service on private roads at Belfast Harbour in Northern Ireland.

Designed to achieve modal shift, the key finding was that “The services are only commercially viable when the safety driver or attendant is removed.”

Dawson then joined probably the session of the day – on first-mover advantage – an info-packed panel moderated by Tom Burgess-Langhelt of PA, and featuring Claire Spooner of Innovate UK, Liz St Louis of The Sunderland Advanced Mobility Shuttle (SAMS) project, Dr Andy Harris of Wrightbus, and Kyle Thomas of Saif Autonomy.

Harlander and SAMS were two of the seven Commercialising CAM competition winners announced back in February 2023. St Louis reported that SAMS is now running 95%+ autonomously, providing a new shuttle service to Sunderland Royal Hospital.

In January, it was confirmed that Oxa would provide the vehicle – their modified Ford E-Transit – after the previous supplier dropped out. Operated by Stagecoach, St Louis said the team “have been blown away by how good the technology is”.

“The minute people go on the vehicle, their perception changes, and that was my experience as well,” she continued. “There’s a societal readiness now. So many great use cases – rural areas, seaside resorts.”

Dr Harris outlined some practical issues specific to buses, for example, if someone steps out in front of a car with automatic emergency braking (AEB), the driver with a seatbelt should be fine.

The same scenario in a bus with standing passengers could have a very different outcome. Should seating and seatbelts therefore be compulsory?

“We can prove with data that autonomy can be safer,” said Thomas. “But the US market is taking the engineers. The UK is falling behind.”

Spooner outlined how multiple CAM and net zero projects were showing job shifts rather than losses, for example, with drivers becoming teleoperators and hairdressers being well-suited to roles at battery gigafactories.

All agreed that the journey to this point had been far from easy, with Dawson admitting that Harlander had progressed “quietly”. That needs to change now. We must start shouting from the rooftops about these incredible achievements.

Beyond R&D

Suddenly, the last panel of the day was upon us – on moving from Collaborative Research and Development (CR&D) to ‘productisation’, with the help of grants.

Professor David Keene of Aurrigo explained how UK government backing had enabled him to target the business case within airports, develop the world-leading Auto-Cargo vehicle, and sign a landmark partnership with UPS. “The export opportunities are huge,” he said.

He then joined a panel, moderated by the APC’s Alex Wood, featuring Karla Jakeman of TRL, Richard Jinks of Oxa, Kieran Borrett of Plug and Play, and the aforementioned Jenny Millard of KPMG.

With a transparency typical of the event, it was agreed that any major trial will likely include at least one project change request (PCR) and, so long as there’s reasonable justification, that’s fine.

“Grants can help you pivot into new areas,” said Borrett. “We are not short of demand,” said Jinks. “Oxa has 420 people now and the challenge is to keep the startup mindset, to keep moving at pace.”

The closing spot went to UK self-driving stalwart, Michael Talbot, Deputy Head of CCAV, who emphasised that CAM is an important part of the government’s flagship growth strategy.

“As we celebrate our 10^th birthday, CCAV has funded 130 projects,” he said. “We see time and again, it is difficult, it is difficult, and then you’re there. Effective collaboration is a UK strength and, looking ahead, we want to stop the stop-start with more continuous funding.”

It was exactly what everyone needed to hear. Now, along with all other sectors, we await news of the Spending Review.

Margate-based Self-Driving PR (SDPR) has launched a new campaign, SDPR 4 CAM, to attract creative talent and win marketing communications business in the fast-growing connected and automated mobility (CAM) space.

Head of Self-Driving PR, Melody Kennett, commented: “The global CAM ecosystem is evolving rapidly, with the UK market alone predicted to be worth up to £42 billion by 2035. With safety paramount and utmost clarity vital, it needs public relations specialists who love and understand it. That’s what SDPR 4 CAM is all about.

Self-driving experts

“As well as a proven track record in mobility marcomms and events, we work closely with the Cars Of The Future editorial team, literally in the same office. This deep sector-specific knowledge helps sharpen our CAM media strategies. It’s a unique and powerful advantage.

“The message is simple: If you’ve got an amazing CAM product or service to promote, think SDPR. Check out our website and invite us to pitch. Likewise, if you’re a Kent creative passisonate about cutting-edge auto tech, we’re recruiting, so please get in touch.”

Full disclosure: SDPR is owned and run by Cars Of The Future‘s parent company, Featurebank.