If you read a lot of tech news, you’d think we’re merely months away from being able to hail a robotaxi in Europe. Unfortunately, this will be wrong: because those articles are most likely talking about projects in North America. The EU approach to autonomous ridesharing and ride-hailing is vastly different to the US.
So, we had a simple question: when will we be able to catch a robotaxi and Europe? And why can’t we yet?
Currently, there are robotaxis (and a small number of roboshuttles) in the US, but only roboshuttles in Europe, terms we’ll define later. This difference between the two locations comes down to two things: regulations and ideology.
Hi there, EV nerd!
Subscribe now for a weekly recap of our favorite mobility stories
However, let’s take a step back. The first thing to understand is what we mean by autonomous vehicles.
Levels of Driving Automation
Vehicle automation is far more than the self-driven robotic ride many people envision. There are five levels of vehicle automation:
The investment boom in autonomous vehicles centres around Level 2 to 4 automation. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Mercedes Benz and Tesla are refining their Level 2 software. Last year Mercedes-Benz was granted system approval of Level 3 automation in Germany under UN-R157, restricted to specific conditions with gradual expansion. The country passed autonomous driving laws in 2021. Alongside this, a variety of companies are focused on developing automated ride-hailing taxis, and shuttle buses.
But back to the levels themselves. At Level 4, a vehicle can drive itself autonomously under limited conditions. In the future, a Level 5 vehicle will drive itself under all conditions. Currently, there are no Level 5 vehicles on the roads.
When you read news of robovehicles, it details their progress through a series of tightly regulated trials and tests. These trials are restricted to predefined areas, with limitations depending on weather and time of day.
Vehicles first operate with a safety driver behind the wheel. The end goal is always to deploy driverless paid ride-hail services. But because these are only Level 4, each vehicle has a “remote operator” who helps the vehicle make decisions based on camera, audio, and sensor data.
Now we understand how the levels of automation works, we need to look at the difference between robotaxis and roboshuttles to help us understand why Europe lags behind the US.
Robotaxis meet roboshuttles
When we talk about ride-hail vehicles, there are two kinds of Level 4 autonomous people-carrying vehicles on the roads: