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Britain Offers Itself as a Proving Ground

Britain Offers Itself as a Proving Ground

By Mark Scott, The New York Times | Updated: 11 June 2015 13:20 IST

A nondescript industrial park in Coventry, England, two hours north of London, seems an unlikely place to find a state-of-the-art driverless car.

Yet in between red-brick 1970s warehouses and other small businesses, a British company is competing with the likes of Google and Mercedes-Benz, putting the final touches on a vehicle to offer a driverless experience to the masses.

The electric car - less than 9 feet long and with a range of about 40 miles - will start traveling this summer on the streets of Milton Keynes, a small town on the outskirts of the British capital.

"Our little company is taking on some of the largest companies in the world," said Miles Garner, autonomous vehicle project director at RDM, the 46-person company behind the driverless car. "It hasn't been easy. But unlike other companies, we could start with a clean piece of paper and see where things took us."

The ambitions of RDM are part of a wider push by British companies and policymakers to take advantage of the growing worldwide appetite for driverless cars.

The government has earmarked 40 million pounds, or $61 million, for trials aimed at making Britain a global hub for testing rules for driverless cars and building the components for these vehicles when they eventually become widely available, potentially as early as the end of the decade.

That includes the recent start of three pilot projects spread across Britain with the aim of showcasing local engineering talent and attracting global automakers looking for a place to test prototypes. Already, the trials have won the backing of companies including Ford; Tata Motors, the Indian owner of Jaguar Land Rover; and Williams, the Formula One racing team.

And with the government expected to release an additional 100 million pounds to fund future driverless car research and development, local lawmakers and companies are hurriedly signing deals, finding international partners and figuring out what else is needed to turn autonomous cars into a reality.

"The goal is to get driverless vehicles onto the roads," said Paul Zanelli, chief technology officer of Transport Systems Catapult, a government-funded body tasked with jump-starting the country's automotive ambitions. "We want to put the U.K. at the forefront of what's going on."

Despite the lofty goals, analysts say it is unlikely that Britain, whose domestic carmakers like Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce were sold long ago to international owners, can compete head-to-head with companies like Google and Apple. Google announced it would start testing its own driverless vehicles on public roads in the United States this summer, and Apple is rumored to be working on its own autonomous vehicle.

Instead, the country is positioning itself as a giant test track for global automakers.

A recent review of Britain's transport laws provided a green light for testing driverless cars on public roads - something often not allowed on the streets of other European countries. The country's policymakers also are completing industry guidelines to sidestep other potential roadblocks, like liability and insurance issues, that could still hamper carmakers' plans for autonomous cars.

"We're on the cusp of a massive change in how we move people and goods around cities," said Nick Reed, academy director at TRL, a transport consulting company, who is coordinating one of the driverless projects. "If we can figure out these problems first, it gives us a huge advantage."

Britain's ambitions will soon start to bear fruit.

In Bristol, a centuries-old city in southwest England, testing will soon begin on an autonomous SUV. The goal is to see whether the customized Bowler Wildcat, based on a Land Rover and modified by BAE Systems, the military contractor, can handle tasks like maneuvering around junctions and taking over control from a driver in certain situations.

Eight driverless electric vehicles - each holding up to 10 people - are to ferry passengers around pedestrian zones in Greenwich, a neighborhood in East London.

And in Milton Keynes, Ford, Tata Motors and others will try out autonomous prototypes on public and private roads as part of a three-year trial involving 16 companies and universities. The project's coordinators hope to connect the vehicles with the smaller electric cars RDM provides.

The goal, according to Tim Armitage, associate director at the engineering consulting firm Arup, who is overseeing the project, is for people to leave their main vehicles out of town and book autonomous vehicles to shuttle them to the town center.

"In this brave new world, everything has to work together seamlessly," Armitage said. "We're going to push these things as far as we can."

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