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Business minister ‘anxious’ over slow autonomous vehicle rollout

Autonomous vehicle
Self-driving van using software from Oxa. Image credit: Oxa

Building public trust in autonomous vehicles is key, but commercialising at pace will be essential to cement UK leadership, according to the business minister.

Speaking to UKTN, Nusrat Ghani, the minister of state at the Department for Business and Trade, said building public trust is “absolutely key” in the autonomous vehicle rollout and it must happen at a “pace that the public are comfortable with”.

However, the minister said she feels “anxious” over whether the UK is “treading too slowly”.

“We need to move at a pace that’s fast enough to commercialise the products,” Ghani said.

“We want to be able to work at a pace where it’s still credible to invest in these technologies here in the UK.”

Ghani compared the adoption of autonomous driving technology to battery technology, saying the UK was not an “early adopter” and is therefore now “relying on China to produce 80% of our batteries”....