Jaguar Land Rover Now Testing Self-Driving Vehicles On Public Roads In UK

Jaguar Land Rover has begun testing self-driving vehicles on public roads in the UK for the first time, the UK-based company revealed on Friday.

This news follows on a number of other firms beginning self-driving vehicle testing on public roads in the UK over the last year, including Renault and Nissan. The UK government is currently hosting a program encouraging such testing as part of a plan that’s intended to see self-driving vehicles become relatively common by 2020. The aim is for the UK to become a development hotspot for the fast-growing market.

As it stands, an “Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill” is now being considered by parliament there that would see operational law for new technologies such as self-driving vehicles set down.

“By using inputs from multiple sensors, and finding intelligent ways to process this data, we are gaining accurate technical insight to pioneer the automotive application of these technologies,” commented Nick Rogers, the firm’s Executive Director for Product Engineering at Jaguar Land Rover.

“The testing is taking place in the central English city of Coventry, the historic heart of the British car industry, where JLR is headquartered. Trials will continue into next year,” Reuters reports.

While Jaguar Land Rover’s plans and goals are quite understandable, it remains an open question which firms will actually be able to effectively capitalize on the expected rapid growth of the self-driving vehicle sector over the coming decade. It may end up the case that the firm will be beaten to market by many years by firms such as Waymo/Google.

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