Driverless cars: the EU Commission wants them on a “large scale”

Brussels –  Forge ahead with driverless cars. The European Commission continues to work for what is increasingly a challenge, and on which the EU executive is not determined to have second thoughts. On the contrary, the Commissioner for Industrial Strategy, Stephane Séjourné, assures that the goal is to forge ahead. The Commission, he said, responding to a parliamentary question, wants a large-scale industrial capacity.

To that end, there is the EU will “continue to support funding for research and development, update the EU regulatory framework for autonomous vehicles and support Member States towards the update of their national road transport frameworks,” Séjourné assured. The goal is “to ensure the legality of automated driving and the possibility to deploy them at scale.”

For driverless cars — or autonomous vehicles — the keyword will also be ‘simplification,’ in line with the competitiveness agenda that Commission president Ursula von der Leyen grandly presented. Moreover, the strategy for these types of cars is part of the broader all-European commitment to the automotive sector. “The Commission wants to ensure that the EU remains a global leader in the automotive industry, preserving jobs and manufacturing capacity in Europe,” reiterated Séjourné, responsible for one of the four strands of the automotive Action Plan.

Meanwhile, there is good news. Regarding autonomous vehicles, “the EU industry is at a good stage of technology development, and the EU established a regulatory framework for the sale of autonomous
vehicles,” the French commissioner of the von der Leyen team continued. The problem, Séjourné admits, is that “such vehicles cannot easily access roads throughout Europe.” The EU executive intends to remedy this.