Germany can take a leading role worldwide in autonomous driving.
In San Francisco, electric cars without a driver behind the wheel are now part of everyday life. China is also driving forward the development of vehicles that operate without a leading person (i.e. level 4 of autonomous driving) in its domestic market, with large numbers and high mileage.
In this country, however, large companies such as Bosch, ZF Friedrichshafen and Continental are prioritizing development projects for autonomous driving and are partially withdrawing from the market and the technology. Germany is progressive in terms of legislation, but to date no regular operation at level four has been permitted in Germany.
The soon-to-be-outgoing federal government will change this with its strategy for autonomous driving in road traffic published at the beginning of December. “Germany (…) should become one of the world’s leading innovation and production locations for autonomous driving.” The strategy is intended to accelerate the market ramp-up of autonomous driving and create an “innovation-friendly framework” that “must be filled with life by business and industry”.
The strategy is a correct and important signal for more autonomous driving in Germany. Because autonomous vehicles are urgently needed for a stable public transport service and climate protection. Autonomous and individually bookable on-demand services with shuttles and buses can contribute to sustainable mobility and improved services, particularly in rural and suburban areas.
In addition, the costs of the necessary expansion of public transport by 2045 will be largely driven by increasing expenses for drivers. Self-driving vehicles are part of the solution to this problem too.
The federal government has set the goal of integrating “autonomous driving as an integral part of a cross-modal and networked mobility system” by 2030. By 2028, the world's largest contiguous operating area for autonomous vehicles will be created in Germany. These goals are ambitious. It is up to the next government to pick up the pace and keep it high. The topic must not become a never-ending story like broadband expansion.
A new government can make a big difference if it implements the measures mentioned in the strategy with the key players in autonomous driving. An “implementation alliance” made up of states, municipalities, operators, companies, associations and science, as announced by the Federal Ministry of Transport, would be very suitable for this. In order for autonomous driving to become an integral part of public transport, the alliance should particularly address the following points.
Instead of funding short-term and small-scale projects, the federal and state governments should focus funding on a maximum of three large-scale, long-term model projects, especially in suburban and rural areas. In these large field tests, autonomous vehicle fleets should be put on the roads as quickly as possible, ideally in three-digit numbers, and the range should be continuously expanded. This is the only way to create a sales perspective for many vehicles, which enables safe and sustainable business models in public transport to reduce costs.
A rapid ramp-up with large volumes required significant investments in research, development, testing and implementation of autonomous driving. Here it is important to develop new financing models and rethink existing procurement processes – for example in collaboration with private investors. Approaches such as purchasing groups or subscription models could play a role beyond the classic one-off purchase by an individual authority.
Scientific support for large-scale projects offers the opportunity to prepare findings along the entire process chain – from introduction to rollout to operation – as a blueprint for other regions. The approval and approval processes for autonomous on-demand mobility offers should be simplified and regulatory uncertainties and ambiguities should be adjusted as quickly as possible.
Germany still has the chance to advance innovations in autonomous driving so that it becomes a leading industrial location – with all the positive effects for value creation, employment and the mobility transition, and despite a relatively small, local digital economy. To ensure that the future advances autonomously, now is the time to set the course so that Germany can catch up with the global leadership.
Yannick Thoma leads the international cooperation project at Agora Verkehrswende.
