DRIVERLESS CARS NISSAN’S ROLE IN THREE-YEAR
AUTONOMOUS ‘ROBOTAXI’ TRIALS IN LONDON
A project to create a blueprint for the future of driverless vehicles in UK cities - including “robotaxis” - has been backed by Nissan. The ServCity scheme, led by a consortium of industry players, has completed 1,600 test miles in a bid to
help autonomous vehicles
integrate with city infrastructure. A Nissan Leaf was fitted with specialist technology allowing the vehicle to detect an object not within the line of sight of the vehicle, for trials on London roads. Trials took place in Greenwich where the Smart Mobility Living Lab scheme allows for testing of emerging technologies, safely in a real urban environment. The Lab’s network of roadside sensors and data processing capabilities
helped the ServCity vehicle improve its situational awareness and manoeuvre through traffic. David Moss, senior vice president, region research and development for Nissan AMIEO said: “Through our world-class R&D base in Cranfield in the UK, Nissan is continuously innovating to bring cutting-edge, purpose-driven technologies that benefit our customers. ServCity’s achieve-
ZOOX OPERATING ON ROADS IN CALIFORNIA
Amazon-owned Zoox has started offering driverless robotaxi rides in California after receiving a testing permit from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Unlike the autonomous vehicles from Cruise and Waymo, Zoox’s vehicles are purpose built for driverless taxi rides, so they have no steering wheel or pedals. Shortly after receiving the permit in February, Zoox conducted the first run of its employee shuttle service in Foster City, marking the first time in history that a purpose-built autonomous robotaxi, without driving controls, carried passengers on open public roads. To get to that point, the company completed rigorous testing with the vehicles on private roads. It also ran its L3 test fleet (hybrid Toyota Highlanders with safety drivers) over a million autonomous miles on data-gathering missions in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Seattle. Zoox has been developing its unique vehicles since it launched nine years ago, and was acquired by Amazon in a $1.2b merger in the summer of 2020.
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ments contribute to our efforts to usher in a future where we hope to see zero fatalities on the road while providing customers with the added comfort and convenience that come from advanced autonomous drive technologies.” ServCity is a connected and autonomous vehicle project backed by the Government and akin to the projects taking place in Sunderland and involving Nissan’s factory there. During the three year scheme, the consortium of Nissan, Connected Places Catapult, TRL, Hitachi Europe, the University of Nottingham and SBD Automotive has created a blueprint to help manufacturers, transport providers and city planners prepare for driverless vehicles.
BAIDU GETS APPROVAL TO LAUNCH IN BEIJING
Chinese tech giant Baidu has a permit to operate a fully driverless ride-hailing service in Beijing. The firm plans to deploy ten fully autonomous vehicles in a technology park developed by the government, after it was granted a licence to commence a test service. The last five years has seen Baidu, considered to be the Chinese equivalent of Google, increase its involvement in driverless technology as part of efforts to diversify its business model. The new Beijing service has received government approval to run in the suburb of Yizhuang, which is a corporate hub. Public transport users will be able to book subsidised rides through the company’s Apollo Go app. Last August, Baidu was given the go-ahead to launch robotaxi services in the cities of Wuhan and Chongqing, marking the first time that fully driverless cars took to mainland Chinese roads. The Chinese government has set a target for “intelligent connected vehicles” to represent 30 per cent of all new car sales in the country by 2025.
APRIL 2023 PHTM
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