On the hilly roads of San Francisco, California, it is not uncommon for two white cars with small black hats to meet each other. The unusual thing about the cars – apart from the hats – is that there is no driver behind the wheel. Two million driverless taxi trips have been completed in August 2021 in the city, which has become the face of self-driving cars.
Even in several Chinese cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Wuhan, driverless cars are rolling.
Self-driving cars use a combination of cameras, scanners and radar to “see” their surroundings.”Overly positive”
However, outside of the US and China, the revolution in autonomous vehicles that was predicted five to ten years ago has yet to occur.
— I would say that it is two steps forward and one step back, says Yinan Yuwho researches self-driving vehicles at Chalmers and Gothenburg universities.
China is also far ahead when it comes to autonomous vehicles. Search engine company Baidu’s taxis are available in more than ten cities.
In 2017, for example, Volvo signed an agreement with Uber to deliver 24,000 copies of the XC90 model to Uber, which developed its own self-driving technology, until 2021.
— But that obviously didn’t happen. So I would say that people have generally been overly positive, says Yu.
An average car is stationary 90 percent of the time, taking up space. Self-driving cars can be shared by several, and thereby be used more efficiently and free up space. In the long run, they can also be safer, as they are never tired or drunk, or lose their attention.
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However, accidents do happen with self-driving cars, for example in October 2023 when a car belonging to GM-owned Cruise dragged a woman six meters before stopping.
— The ethical question is clever, because who is responsible? says Yu.
Theoretically, it is possible to meet a driverless vehicle on public roads in Sweden as well. It is possible to get type approval for the European market for 1,500 vehicles per year, he says Anders Erikssontechnical investigator at the Swedish Transport Agency.
“But there are many manufacturers who do not see that it is economically justifiable to produce so few vehicles,” he says.
Anders Eriksson, technical investigator, automated vehicles, Swedish Transport Agency. Press image. Lack of legislation
In Sweden, the driverless vehicles that are in operation today either operate within fenced areas – where no permit is required – or in trial operations. These include vehicle manufacturers, operators such as Nobina and Keolis, as well as start-up companies that have carried out various tests. At the moment, seven such trials are underway.
Slowly, roughly at walking speed, the driverless truck rolls with goods at Apotea’s warehouse area in Morgongåva.
In Morgongåva in Uppsala County, near the company Apotea’s large warehouse building, there is an example. A small driverless truck now rolls here, moving goods 800 meters from one building to another. There isn’t even a driver’s compartment to step into. If a person needs to take control, it takes place remotely from a control room in Gothenburg.
The truck is the second in commercial operation for the Swedish company Einride. The first was put into use last year in the United States. The company has also signed a contract with the port of Dubai, the world’s tenth busiest.
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Lack of national legislation
— Our ambition is to scale up both Europe, the USA and Dubai. But we have not shared any figures about the number, says Henrik Greenhead of Einride’s autonomous operations.
The electric truck must make three turns a day in the Apotea area, where it is mixed with other goods traffic, and needs to be charged for a couple of hours every other day.
Perhaps it is only a matter of the future before there are more self-driving cars and trucks on Swedish roads.
— What is missing, as has been done in other European countries, is to come up with more permanent national legislation, which explains a little more about issues of responsibility and the like, says Anders Eriksson.
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