Europe needs to accelerate legislation to create a smoother path toward autonomous driving or risk being left behind by the U.S. and China, panelists said during the Automotive News Europe Congress Conversation on future mobility.
A step in the right direction was a recent ruling by the German lower parliament to allow Level 4 hands-free autonomous driving, but Europe's fragmented political environment and its existing infrastructure remain barriers, the panelists agreed.
To view the ANE Congress Conversation on the future of mobility in Europe, please click here.
"Europe needs to catch up," Ralf Kalmbach, partner at consultancy Bain & Company, said. "All the European logic is following the Vienna Convention, going back to 1978, saying that … the driver needs to be in full control of the vehicle at any time," Kalmbach added.
As a result, any attempt to remove control from the driver is considered dangerous.
Legislation is also varies dramatically between countries in Europe.
In China, by contrast, legislation drawn up for one city can be quickly enacted in other cities. "A market like China is much more homogeneous than Europe, which is a rather scattered landscape. Obviously, this affects the speed that they can roll out new technology," Hyundai Europe's product and pricing management director, Raf Van Nuffel said.
U.S. legislation can be similarly fragmented among the different states, but the country benefits both from native tech companies driving the development as well as a more friendly infrastructure for testing.
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For the testing and rollout of autonomous driving to succeed in Europe, some modifications to the region's often medieval road infrastructure might have to be made.
"It's very clear that the autonomous vehicle technology can't require radically new infrastructure environments to be successful," Siemens head of connected eMobility Andrea Kollmorgen told the panel. "But at the same time, these 'brownfield' environments might require some virgin infrastructure in the short-term that you don't see in China to make sure we reach the same level of performance and insights from the technology."
Building trust
Europe's slower rate of adoption might help build trust in the technology among users.
"The people need to have the power to decide what technology to adopt, which provider to choose, which data to share, with whom," said Matthias Schubert, who is executive vice president of mobility at automotive testing specialist TÜV Rheinland. "That makes the European approach much more complicated, I agree, but probably also much more sustainable because it will make people jump on the train proactively."
The panel agreed that trust is key.
"The security and safety of the passengers and the public is absolutely No. 1," Hyundai's Van Nuffel said.
Kollmorgen, however, cited studies showing that riders very quickly trust autonomous technology, perhaps too quickly.
"The trust barrier is going to drop when we start providing a huge level of convenience," she said.
Testing, especially in simulation, was therefore crucial.
"There's a huge role for simulation in the space to help bridge that technology gap. It's going to be one of the core enabling technologies," Kollmorgen said.
It's also important that the technology is safe over the lifetime of the vehicle, not just on Day One, TUV Rheinland's Schubert added.
There are no shortcuts, Bain's Kalmbach said.
"All bypass attempts will lead in the wrong direction and put the entire industry in a bad light," he said. "I see the autopilot discussion as critical and difficult. We are not ready yet, and we should not demonstrate with claims from various carmakers that we are able to drive autonomously."
