Presentation

In December 2020, the French Ministers of Transport and Industry unveiled the new autonomous vehicle strategy for 2020-2022 at the Ministerial Committee for Transport Development and Innovation. While the progress made over the past two years has made France a “pioneering country in supporting and regulating these new forms of mobility” (whether in terms of experimentation or national regulation), the new strategy must allow us “to move from pride to reality, from experimentation to implementation, from advent to deployment”.

MOVIN’ON LAB’s “Autonomous Vehicle” report stresses “the importance of closely involving local authorities – service providers, mobility regulators, road managers and guarantors of public order – in experiments and in the national strategy for the development of autonomous vehicles” carried by the State. Although they are “forgotten players”, local authorities nonetheless have a “central role” to play in the development of this mobility, particularly in sparsely populated areas.

The report analyzes the three major changes brought about by these vehicles, namely data, insurance and the mobility ecosystem, and points out the regulatory role of public authorities in this area. They must “ensure that the deployment of autonomous vehicles meets real needs”, the authors summarize, recalling that the national strategy must aim to foster innovation, while ensuring that autonomous mobility “contributes to collective progress”. The five fields of “non-technical” controversies widely discussed in this report: their uses, their economy, their environmental impact, their legal framework and finally their political regulation.