Skip to main content

Driverless cars will be on UK roads within four years, says minister

Fully driverless cars will enter the UK in three to four years, says transport secretary Chris Grayling at the Conservative Party conference in the city of Birmingham. A report by Reuters says Grayling is committed to ending the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by 2040. “Newer diesel cars today are cleaner than ever before and of course there will be a role for diesel for many years to come as technology evolves,” Grayling adds. However, OpenText has carried out a survey of 2,000 UK consumers,
October 4, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
Fully driverless cars will enter the UK in three to four years, says transport secretary Chris Grayling at the Conservative Party conference in the city of Birmingham.

 
A report by %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external Reuters false https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-autos-grayling/uk-will-see-truly-driverless-cars-on-roads-in-three-to-four-years-minister-idUKKCN1MB26S false false%> says Grayling is committed to ending the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by 2040.
 
“Newer diesel cars today are cleaner than ever before and of course there will be a role for diesel for many years to come as technology evolves,” Grayling adds.
 
However, OpenText has carried out a survey of 2,000 UK consumers, in which over half of the respondents say they would never consider buying or renting a driverless car.
 
The business information company says six out ten respondents think driverless/autonomous cars will eventually outnumber manually-driven vehicles.
 
A third of participants believe there will be more driverless/autonomous cars on the road than traditional cars in the next 10-15 years. This view was held by 66% of respondents to a similar OpenText survey in 2017.
 
Also, the number of UK citizens comfortable with being a passenger in a driverless car has dropped from 24% in 2017 to 19% in this year's results.
 
Just under a quarter of participants believe autonomous vehicles (AV) will improve road safety compared to 42% of consumers who responded in 2017.
 
One in ten participants think the technology will make roads safer on UK motorways, the company adds.  
 
Mark Bridger, senior vice president, Europe, OpenText, says the more ‘game-changing’ artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as AVs will take longer to be accepted.
 
“AI will enable automakers to analyse, adapt, and suggest solutions based on data. As AVs become more common, the data they produce will become a new, powerful asset for organisations,” Bridger adds.
 
Automotive companies need to ensure the technology is safe and reliable in order to install the necessary level of trust for mass adoption, he concludes.

Related Content

  • Contributions now open for ITS World Congress in Copenhagen
    September 15, 2017
    The call for contributions at the ITS World Congress in Copenhagen are now open under the theme ITS – Quality of Life, deadline 29 September 2017. The 25th congress will focus on ITS solutions that contribute to livability, greener environment and lower congestion and will provide experts with the opportunity to present the latest ITS solutions and mobility technologies.
  • Getaround launches on-demand carsharing service in Philadelphia, US
    August 14, 2018
    Getaround has launched its peer-to-peer carsharing service in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, US, in a bid to alleviate traffic congestion. The service also allows car owners to earn money by renting vehicles to people in their neighbourhood. The cars can be booked hourly or daily and are equipped with Getaround Connect, a patented platform which allows users to remotely locate and unlock vehicles through the company's iPhone or Android app.
  • Only four weeks left to submit papers for ITS Europe and ITS World Congress
    December 16, 2015
    There are only four weeks to the deadline for submission of papers for the ITS Europe 2016 congress in Glasgow 6-9 June and for the ITS World Congress 2016 in Melbourne on 10-14 October. Submit your contribution today to the ITS European Congress in Glasgow to continue the discussion on topics introduced at ITS world Congress in Bordeaux or to introduce new research, deployments and developments in the ITS industry.
  • Zipcar deploys car sharing service across eight London Boroughs
    January 3, 2018
    Floating car service Zipcar Flex (Zipcar), which is said to save 54% of transport costs compared to ride-hailing companies, has been made available to 3.5m Londoners across several Boroughs. The 29p per mile solution is designed to provide its members an environmentally friendly alternative to private car ownership and will only charge for the exact time of their trip. Members can use the car for a one-way journey and be dropped off in one of the thousands of spaces available within its Zipzone, which