This has been confirmed by Renault’s Chief Technology Officer, Gilles Le Borgne, in an interview with Automotive News Europe, during which he stated that “90% of customer expectations are already met with level 2 plus.”
The company will therefore focus its resources on autonomous driving at levels 3 and 4 to achieve another concrete goal: offering driverless minibuses that can operate safely in certain contexts.
Renault will be working with the Chinese startup WeRide in the coming years to develop autonomous electric minibuses. The technology behind this project will be WeRide’s autonomous driving system, which will be installed on the platform of the new Renault Master, available in electric.
The French automaker is already testing this technology on WeRide “shuttles” built in China, including two units currently in circulation at the Roland Garros tennis tournament in Paris. However, the first official vehicles are expected to be launched by the end of the decade.
Renault chose the Chinese startup to develop its project because Renault has been one of WeRide’s main shareholders since 2021. WeRide now has a fleet of around 700 vehicles in operation, including 300 minibuses, and has recently received authorizations to test its autonomous shuttles in the United Arab Emirates, United States, and Singapore.
In general, due to the electrification of the current fleet, most manufacturers have redirected their investments towards research and development around electric vehicles, leaving autonomous vehicles aside. Only the new GSR2 standards, which will come into effect in Europe in July, require manufacturers to equip their vehicles with essential technologies to ensure the safety of occupants and other users.
For autonomous vehicles to function properly, they need to be connected to the existing infrastructure, such as traffic lights or the vehicle in front to anticipate braking, etc. However, this is not yet the case, even though several high-end vehicles today already offer C2X.
The other reason is the regulations in place, particularly in Europe, which evolve very slowly at this level and generally take two steps back after taking one forward when an incident occurs. This was recently the case with Waymo’s (Google) autonomous vehicles in California, which caused several problems, including an accident.
By deploying autonomous minibuses, Renault prioritizes collective transport, which is favored by legislators in this period of CO2 hunting. The rise of this type of connected vehicle, whose route is defined on a very secure axis, may encourage authorities to loosen the rules against autonomous vehicles. However, the technology still needs to prove itself, which will take a few years, if not decades.