An electric car, an autonomous car and a car that runs on hydrogen. The passenger transport company Alsa will be present at the Smart City fair that is being held next week in Madrid and has decided to put these three models of cars on its stand, which “represent the latest trends in mobility,” says its spokesperson. Mobility is not the only topic that will be covered at this congress dedicated to the future of cities, but it is one of the central ones. Within this, the autonomous car will occupy a prominent place with the presentation of various projects and pilots such as the one that will be developed in Mercamadrid (within the Mobilities for EU initiative).
Announcements about the arrival of self-driving vehicles are common, but what is tangible behind them? Madrid, for example, has a regular driverless bus line at the Autonomous University. The technology has also been tested in the EMT depots in Carabanchel and there are several pilots of autonomous vehicles for garbage collection and street sweeping. In France, more daringly, a few years ago the deployment of a fleet of driverless electric minibuses was announced for the city of Châteauroux in 2026But is it true that we will see them on the streets in a couple of years? The answer: it depends on the degree of autonomy of the car and the driving environment we are talking about.
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) classification establishes 5 levels of autonomy: the last step is for those that can potentially act by making decisions on their own in any situation that may arise. “There is no manufacturer that is considering it at least until 2040, and we will see then. Those that bring together the work of the brands at present, and those that we will see in the next decade, are those at level 4: the car can go alone, but in controlled environments and with supervision, that is to say that we will see them first on motorways, dual carriageways and, ultimately, in cities. Those that can already be purchased at user level are those at level 2 and more than autonomy we can talk about assisted driving, because they help you to trace curves, maintain your speed on motorways, prevent you from leaving the lane. Up to level 2, the driver is ultimately responsible,” says Felipe Jiménez, professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid and researcher at the University Institute of Automobile Research. For each level, the car incorporates more sensors for environmental perception: from laser, radar, Lidar and ultrasound to machine vision cameras. In fact, one of the latest launches of Tesla is a model without side mirrors and with a 360º camera on the ceiling.
Robotaxis in cities
Uber just announced a deal with Cruise, General Motors’ self-driving car brand, to make its driverless taxi service available from 2025. Curious because the GM company has had to abandon the service (and change its CEO) for several months throughout the state of California due to a pedestrian being run over in 2023. Also interesting because it announces the merger with another company outside of Tesla, a regular brand in the Uber service and one of the first to bet on this technology.
Waymo (Google) cars are already a common sight on the streets of San Francisco. The company has around a hundred cars that provide a 24/7 taxi service. However, the frequent accidents that it causes have led to a public protest movement: the “Safe Street Rebel”, who posts accidents on social media and the inconveniences that these vehicles cause in the city: traffic jams, driving in prohibited places. Sometimes they disable the vehicles by placing a cone on their hoods.
Regular services are already taking off in the US, but it is China, the country that is defining the future of autonomous mobility on its streets. There, the New York Times reports, Baidu already has a fleet of 500 autonomous taxis in operation and offers trips that are 2 to 4 times cheaper than traditional taxis. “Baidu has announced that it will expand its services with a fleet of another 1,000 vehicles and up to 16 cities have given the green light to various tests with this type of vehicle,” says the newspaper. As with the electric vehicle, the Beijing government is helping to deploy this technology by designating test areas for robot taxis in cities and limiting online publications about traffic accidents to curb fears of this technology. “Chinese companies are gaining a strategic advantage over rivals,” says the newspaper. A competitive advantage of 5-6 years compared to Tesla or any other Western brand.
What is happening in Europe? Firstly, there is still no homologation protocol for autonomous cars and “we are more conservative when it comes to testing the technology and we make demonstrators on controlled circuits. Here we are committed to safety, but in China or the USA they are committed to driving the cars for miles even though it causes accidents. There they want to drive a lot and sometimes problems arise. It is a choice; being more conservative means you have less knowledge, but also if something serious happens, you generate more headlines and more negative attention,” Jiménez clarifies.
And in the event of an accident, who is responsible: the car or the driver? At levels where it works as a driving assistance system, it is very clear, but at levels 3 and 4, not so much. In Spain, the DGT is finalizing a regulation on autonomous driving for 2025. In addition, “a few months ago it was announced, for example, that these vehicles cannot circulate if they do not have their corresponding circulation permit issued by the Central Traffic Headquarters, authorization whose purpose is to ensure their suitability to circulate safely. In addition, work is being done on a new Annex XX for automated driving systems, to regulate the specific framework on the certification procedure intended to verify that a vehicle that has an automated driving system complies with traffic regulations,” says the DGT. And the fact is that “the reactions of digital systems are different from those of a human. That is why There is a discussion about whether it should have a badge to inform other users. “That this car is driving without a driver, because its behaviour is abnormal from a human point of view. One example is that they are programmed to position themselves in the middle of lanes, even in overtaking situations or on curves where a human tends to cut corners. The decision systems are different in both cases.”
As for changes to roads, cars will have to “communicate” with the roads, which means the need to provide 5G connectivity to the road network. In this sense, the emergence of a new color, white, at traffic lights. This is the proposal from the University of North Carolina, which would be activated when there were enough self-driving cars. Since the vehicles and the signals are connected, if the traffic light detects the presence of many self-driving cars, it could activate the white light to indicate to these vehicles to follow the car in front of them. If manual cars predominate, the traffic lights would keep their three colors.