Moving UK self-driving from surviving to thriving – CAM Innovators 2025
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 10th 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.
