Feature
Above: Under new laws, responsibility for accidents involving self-driving vehicles shifts from drivers to manufacturers and software providers when in autonomous mode.
“You’re suddenly then becoming criminally responsible under the normal road traffic legislation, because you’ve now taken the wheel – or you didn’t take the wheel when you should have done. There’s a risk here that people are going to think, ‘actually, I’m better off just driving’.”
There is momentum behind the Automated Vehicle Act and the legislation is expected to kick in next year, before AVs are permitted on the roads. Secondary legislation is also said to be in the works to support the legal framework and the overall regulatory package is regarded as sophisticated and ahead of the curve. As for the first highway applications of AVs in fleet capacities, they are expected to follow the regular, predictable format established by manned trials. “First, it will be industrial – logistics and supply chain companies – where people are moving materials, goods and pallets. They’ll be extended from yard movements and ports,” says Richard Jinks, COO at automated vehicle software specialist Oxa, which has conducted extensive trials in the UK and overseas, including the aforementioned Oxford bus routes. He explains how they work in practice: “If you think of a bus, it’s going from A to B to C to D and back again. From an autonomy point of view, you can qualify that route, because it’s the same every day.” Few believe drivers will be perusing choice lists for cars without steering wheels in 2026, or any time in the foreseeable future, but Jinks points to airports and hazardous sites as some of the more likely areas in which AVs could be put to work in both on and off- highway capacities.
“Where there’s oversized baggage, there are 3.5- tonne vans. Lots of industrial sites use vans, too, and the companies don’t really want humans in dangerous places. Those could easily be use cases that could be replicated with autonomy on fixed routes. “In 2026, you won’t be seeing drivers leave their cars and have autonomous vehicles as private vehicles, but you will start seeing certain services on a fixed route,
24 | November/December 2024 |
www.businesscar.co.uk
operated by autonomous vehicles for shared passenger transportation and the movement of goods. Parking your car at the airport car park and the vehicle taking you to the terminal could be autonomous.” The mass-market insurance situation will be challenging to say the least. It has always been the case that insurers do not like unchartered territory, and you need only look at the cost of cover for electric vehicles – which are substantially more tried and tested than AVs and anecdotally cost around a third more than ICEs to insure, because they are ‘new’ – and general policies for AVs operating outside niche and heavily specialised trials seem a long way off. Butler agrees that cover will be tricky, but thinks that, operated correctly, AVs could be beneficial for fleets, although there is a question mark for manufacturers. “If the standard of safety is higher than or equivalent
to a competent driver, there should be a reduction in accidents. If there is a reduction in accidents, then… there should be a reduction in insurance premiums. You will get reduced fuel consumption. Obviously, if they’re electric, then that’s different, but if you’ve got lower fuel consumption, you’ve got lower emissions, so it’s good from an environmental perspective. “AVs will travel at the optimum speed, they’ll apply optimum levels of braking, they’ll choose the fastest routes. They’ll therefore reduce wear and tear on parts and thus maximise efficiency, so those vehicles should last longer.
“The flip side of that, of course, is that the longer the vehicles last, the less demand for them there’ll be. You might find the fleet providers not having the same turnover of vehicles from customers, because they don’t need to replace them.”
Above: Production of Cruise's Origin AV was shelved after a San Francisco accident in October 2023.
Iv-olga/
Shutterstock.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65
