How Germany hopes to get the edge in driverless technology

FRANKFURT, Germany — In Hamburg, a fleet of electric Volkswagen vans owned by a ride-hailing service roams the streets picking up and dropping off passengers. The vehicles steer themselves, but technicians working from a remote control center keep an eye on their progress with the help of video monitors. If anything goes wrong, they can take control of the vehicle and steer it out of trouble.

This futuristic vision, within reach of current technology, is about to become legal in Germany. The Parliament in Berlin approved a new law on autonomous driving in May, and it awaits the signature of Germany’s president, a formality. The law opens a path for companies to start making money from autonomous driving services, which could also spur development.

With its requirement that autonomous vehicles be overseen by humans, the German law reflects a realization in the industry that researchers are still years away from cars that can safely allow the driver to disengage while the car does all the work. The law also requires that autonomous vehicles operate in a defined space approved by the authorities, an acknowledgment that the technology is not advanced enough to work safely in areas where traffic is chaotic and unpredictable.

So German companies that are pursuing the technology have adjusted their ambitions, focusing on moneymaking uses that don’t require major breakthroughs.

Germany’s nationwide approach contrasts with the patchwork of state laws in the

United States. The U.S. government has issued guidelines for autonomous driving, but attempts to establish mandatory rules that would apply in all 50 states have foundered in Congress amid disagreement among automakers and autonomous driving developers about what the legislation should say.

Some states have encouraged autonomous driving research; Arizona allows Waymo, for example, to offer driverless taxis in Phoenix. But it’s not yet possible to roll out such services nationwide, achieving the kind of scale that would help make them profitable.

“Germany is unique in the sense that you now have a law that pertains to the entire country,” said Elliot Katz, the chief business officer of Phantom Auto, a California company that provides software to monitor and control vehicles remotely. “In the U.S., we do not have any overarching federal autonomous driving regulation. We have state laws, which is problematic because driving is inherently interstate.”

The German legislation could also give the country’s automakers an edge in the race to design cars that can drive themselves.

By deploying autonomous vehicles commercially, they will gather large amounts of data they can use to advance the technology. If the services are profitable, they will also help pay for further development.

The law permits autonomous vehicles that remain within a defined territory and are overseen by trained technicians. Crucially, it allows the monitors to keep tabs on numerous vehicles remotely. That means a person or team could supervise a fleet of autonomous shuttle vans or self-driving taxis by video from a command center, eliminating the need for a supervisor in every vehicle. In case of trouble, a technician would be able to take control of the vehicle from afar.

Proponents say the law will allow autonomous buses to serve rural areas where public transportation is scarce. Other services might include automated valet parking or robot package delivery. Autonomous vehicles could be used to transport components or workers around a factory complex or students around a university.

Vehicles already exist that can navigate a predictable course, such as from an airport parking lot to a departure terminal, but existing German law requires a human to be on board, which cancels out any cost savings from eliminating the driver.

If a driver can oversee a dozen buses from a command center, “there are use cases that would now be attractive,” said Peter Liggesmeyer, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering in Kaiserslautern. That will encourage more development, he said.

In technical jargon, the new law allows Level 4 autonomous driving, in which a vehicle can steer and navigate by itself most of the time but may occasionally require human intervention. That is one step away from the autonomous driving nirvana of

cars that can operate without any human help.