Musk’s push for driverless cars could be dented by UK’s potholes and winding roads

The UK's complex road layout and millions of potholes could mean the mass rollout of driverless cars is as long as 20 years away Elon Musk's bid to have driverless cars on the streets of the UK[1] could be slowed by the UK's winding roads and pothole problems, experts have warned. Musk's Tesla car firm[2] launched its driverless 'robotaxis' in Austin, Texas, earlier this week, as other tech giants roll out their own Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) in the US and countries such as China and UAE.

Tesla has met with senior civil servants in Whitehall as it pushes for self-driving cars to be fast-tracked in the UK and roads minister Lilian Greenwood said earlier this month that the Government would look to "accelerate" the introduction of new laws allowing driverless vehicles on UK roads. However, experts fear the country's complex road layout and millions of potholes could mean the mass rollout of driverless cars[3] is as long as 20 years away in the UK. Andy Marchant, traffic expert at mapping group TomTom, said: "Unlike the grid-like roads of American cities... the UK presents a far more complex landscape."

UK's 'hands free' option

Currently, the only car permitted to use its self-driving technology on public roads in the UK is Ford's Mustang Tech-E[4].

In April 2023, the then Conservative government granted approval for hands-free driving in the car on motorways, specifically within designated "Blue Zones" on the 2,300 miles of mapped motorways in England, Scotland, and Wales. This is enabled by Ford's BlueCruise Level 2 advanced driver-assistance system, which allows the driver to take their hands off the wheel, but is not fully driverless as they must remain attentive and ready to take control at any moment. The i Paper revealed in May, that Musk's Tesla met with senior civil servants several times to push the Government to fast-track approval of its self-driving cars.

However, according to one of the UK's leading self-driving experts, Tesla's bid has been slowed by seeking to have its entire range of models given the green light to use autonomous features, rather than taking Ford's approach of seeking approval for just one model. "You've got the Mustang Mach-E that, if you pay a subscription, you can take your hands off the wheel on the motorway legally," explains Yousif Al-Ani, principal advanced driver assistance systems research engineer at automotive safety group Thatchams. "Ford have actually gone through this pathway of getting a specific exemption for so many vehicles for a limited time.

Tesla wanted approval for all of their vehicles. It's really just a different approach from a regulatory point of view, and it's nothing to do with actual system capabilities. "I can tell you from testing the cyber truck in the States, that Tesla's full self-driving system over there is extremely capable.

It's probably better than anything we have in the UK."

The pothole problem

Potholes on UK roads will be a problem for driverless cars (Photo: John Keeble/Getty Images)

The Government has also given ride-hailing app Uber[5] the go-ahead for trials of driverless cabs in some London boroughs from next year.

The trials will use AI technology from UK firm Wayve, and will be the first trials of AVs without a safety driver in the country. John Kushnick, legal operations director at National Accident Helpline, believes self-driving vehicles will first appear on UK streets as taxis and public transport, rather than through private ownership. He said: "Why do you need to own a vehicle?

Our vehicles are sitting on the drive 90 per cent of the time. "You could need a car to get you to work every morning at eight o'clock. Book that with a firm like Uber.

Once you've got to work, it can go off and do something else. So, you're just using it, paying for it, for that period of time."

Uber will trial its driverless taxis in London next year (Photo: Nam Y.

Huh/AP)

However, experts believe there is one major hurdle in the UK. Our roads systems are nowhere near as simple as those in the US, we have many different driving conditions and well over a million potholes across the nation, according to motoring group RAC. "What we actually find is that the roads in the UK are comparatively complex to some of those in North America, and that's why some of the outstanding companies that we have developing in the UK have started to roll out their technology in the US," says Mark Cracknell, programme director at Zenzic, the organisation set up by the Government and the motor industry to accelerate the development of self-driving vehicles.

TomTom's Marchant adds: "Much of the progress in AV technologies has been tested in cities with fundamentally different characteristics from London. "Unlike the grid-like roads of American cities or the meticulously planned streets of newer urban environments across specific APAC (Asia-Pacific) regions, the UK presents a far more complex landscape." Cracknell believes that due to the often complex layouts of the UK's 246,500 miles of roads, the true driverless nation could be somewhere between 15 and 20 years away.

"What we actually think, as the current trend of changes in vehicle ownership continues, is that you might have companies who operate fleets of these AVs, and you might subscribe to a car service, because it's automated. "You can probably see by the end of this decade we see that the technology is matured for this to happen. The regulations are coming in the next 18 months, and you'll start to see the industry maturing.

"It could well be that you start to see companies springing up in kind of the early 2030s who are offering these kinds of solutions." Musk's nemesis over driverless safety

Tesla has been testing its robotaxis launch in Austin, Texas (Photo: Joel Angel Juarez/Reuters)

While Elon Musk pushes ahead with a trial of his driverless Tesla robotaxis, one man has become something of a thorn in his side. Dan O'Dowd is a software engineer with decades of experience with Nasa and even on the B2 stealth bombers that dropped the "bunker bombs" on Iran nuclear facilities last weekend.

He believes the robotaxis are not safe enough to be rolled out across the US, and he doesn't mind saying so, despite being faced with cease and desist legal threats from Tesla. "I've been in for Elon Musk in large part because he's selling a defective product to consumers while telling them it will make them safer than if they drive themselves," says O'Dowd, who now runs his own company Green Hills, which provides safety and security software. O'Dowd, who through his 'Dawn Project' has run his own tests on Tesla's vehicles purportedly showing safety failures, has even spent millions of his own money on Super Bowl and newspaper adverts in an attempt to highlight his claims to both car buyers and politicians.

Tesla demanded O'Dowd stop all "defamatory' adverts, remove videos of his tests on Tesla cars, and issue a public retraction of his claims over Tesla's safety record. A legal letter added: "The Dawn Project continue to spread misinformation about Tesla, by falsely claiming that Tesla's [full self driving] FSD (Beta) technology will not recognize children and by falsely stating that the feature will run over children when it is engaged. "The purported tests misuse and misrepresent the capabilities of Tesla's technology, and disregard widely recognized testing performed by independent agencies as well as the experiences shared by our customers."

O'Dowd, however, has not ceased his criticism since receiving this letter three years ago. "If Musk takes full self-driving and autopilot off the road, I'll stop," he says. "I'll go do something else." O'Dowd is not as evangelical when it comes to all driverless technology.

He's quite a fan of Waymo, Google's autonomous driving software. "They've got thousands of cars and there's the occasional error, something goes wrong, and they're fixing it. They've already tested it safer than human drivers.

It's very doable." Tesla was contacted for comment.

Who pays the insurance?

For some, the world of insurance will have to change to take account of the fact that those owning the vehicles are, to a great extent, relying on the safety of the technology, rather than their own driving skills. "You're going to have to have some level of strict liability," says Kushnick. "It might be, for example, the manufacturers provide insurance rather than individuals.

Because why would you be insured as an individual, if you're not driving the car? It would have to be the manufacturers. "It might be that if there's an accident between two autonomous vehicles, those manufacturers share the cost of that insurance, and you just simply litigate over the value of the claim."

Another issue impacting a true driverless future could be the UK's somewhat patchy mobile network. Petrina Steele a senior director at US-based digital infrastructure company Equinix, points to the requirement for a better digital infrastructure. "Equinix recently partnered with Hyundai to do just this, deploying global cloud assets for Hyundai's HCloud which connects vehicles in a data fabric," says Steele.

"We need to talk about the digital infrastructure that needs to be deployed alongside these vehicles.

We can't change our roads, but we can make the cars on them smarter."

There is plenty of time to sort out the nitty gritty of how AVs are insured and how those vehicles may gather their information from mobile technology because, for now at least, the UK appears some way behind the likes of the US, China and Japan in accelerating towards a driverless future.

References

1. ^ driverless cars on the streets of the UK (inews.co.uk)
2. ^ Tesla car firm (inews.co.uk)
3. ^ driverless cars (inews.co.uk)
4. ^ Ford's Mustang Tech-E (inews.co.uk)
5. ^ ride-hailing app Uber (inews.co.uk)