Germany could allow Level 4 automated driving

FRANKFURT -- Tired of waiting for global regulators to act, the German government is preparing landmark legislation that could commercialize driverless vehicle technology by next summer.

If passed, it could be the first comprehensive legal framework covering both homologation and road traffic requirements for robotaxis in which the computer controls the vehicle at all times.

Germany is seizing the initiative having already waited three years for even the most rudimentary autonomous function to be approved by a United Nations standard-setting body, the UNECE, for sale in the European Union.

The hope is to have the draft approved by Germany’s lower house of parliament before it starts its summer break next year. It is at that point that passing legislation takes a backseat to campaigning for the country’s 2021 general election.

"The planned new legal framework should create the prerequisites in the current legislative period to allow for the standard operation of autonomous, driverless motorized vehicles on public roads, limited geographically to a defined environment,” the Transportation Ministry said in a statement sent to Automotive News Europe. "Driverless vehicles should be enabled for a wide range of various applications without the need to definitively regulate any one specific use case. This flexibility allows for various forms of mobility needs to be taken into account."

The draft legislation is currently undergoing interdepartmental revisions, which is why it has not been made public yet. Any proposal would have to be passed by the entire cabinet before being sent to German members of parliament and finally to the upper house that represents the country’s 16 federal states.

"It goes beyond experimenting with prototypes, it is expressly directed to the commercialization of autonomous transport for people and goods," said Benedikt Wolfers, who is a partner at law firm Posser Spieth Wolfers & Partners.

An expert on automotive regulations, Wolfers briefed industry executives on the plans earlier this month at an event sponsored by The Autonomous, an initiative formed by Austrian software platform provider TTTech Auto to accelerate advances in the field.

Berlin had already passed a law in 2017 allowing drivers to shift control of the vehicle to an onboard computer. Global regulators, however, had not agreed on a method for automakers to sell such a feature in key markets such as the European Union until late last month. That is when the UNECE settled on the first, rudimentary Level 3 eyes-off system..

Normally, the Brussels applies vehicle regulations devised by the Geneva-based UN agency across the EU.