UNECE GRVA, Expert Group on Autonomous Vehicle.

Road vehicles designed to use real-time traffic information, to be connected and to cooperate with each other, with transport infrastructure and vulnerable road users and to progressively take over driving tasks, in order to improve road safety, traffic efficiency and comfort. Automated vehicles are aimed to be fully integrated in existing fleets, use existing road networks and seamlessly work together with public transport systems.

Automated vehicles can be classified on the basis of SAE J3016™ levels:

• Level 0 – No Automation: The full-time performance by the human driver of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even when enhanced by warning or intervention systems.
• Level 1 – Driver Assistance: The driving mode-specific execution by a driver assistance system of either steering or acceleration/deceleration using information about the driving environment and with the expectation that the human driver performs all remaining aspects of the dynamic driving task.
• Level 2 – Partial Automation: The driving mode-specific execution by one or more driver assistance systems of both steering and acceleration/deceleration using information about the driving environment and with the expectation that the human driver performs all remaining aspects of the dynamic driving task.
• Level 3 – Conditional Automation: The driving mode-specific performance by an Automated Driving System of all aspects of the dynamic driving task with the expectation that the human driver will respond appropriately to a request to intervene.
• Level 4 – High Automation: The driving mode-specific performance by an Automated Driving System of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even if a human driver does not respond appropriately to a request to intervene.
• Level 5 – Full Automation: The full-time performance by an Automated Driving System of all aspects of the dynamic driving task under all roadway and environmental conditions that can be managed by a human driver

a handful of well-funded projects have continued to plug away at the problem. The leaders are Waymo—formerly the Google self-driving car project—and Cruise, a startup that is majority-owned by GM.

These companies don’t believe self-driving technology is “decades away” because they’re already testing it in Phoenix and San Francisco. And they are preparing to launch in additional cities in the coming months. Waymo expects to increase passenger rides tenfold between now and the summer of 2024. Cruise is aiming for $1 billion in revenue in 2025, which would require something like a 50-fold expansion of its current service.

There is no guarantee they will succeed. Even if they iron out all the technical problems, it will take many years to make these services profitable.

The “death of self-driving cars” has been greatly exaggerated | Ars Technica

Hutchison Ports first introduced Westwell’s Q-Trucks at Terminal D in Thailand’s Laem Chabang Port in 2020.  Fifteen Q-Trucks ran in mixed mode operation with no separation from other traffic, and have handled over 334,000 TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) moves since their introduction.

Some of the battery-powered trucks have also been used at Felixstowe Port itself, and were deployed late last year after a successful trial. Now 100 more are due to come to the port, with the first units arriving in September of this year.

Commenting on the agreement, Clemence Cheng, Chief Executive Officer of the Port of Felixstowe and Executive Director of Hutchison Ports, said: