Autonomous cars should be allowed to drive from 2022

Driverless cars should be able to participate in road traffic in Germany as early as next year. Autonomous vehicles of the so-called level four should then be allowed to drive on certain specified routes in regular operation in public road traffic. This is a law that the Bundestag passed on Thursday evening and that is intended to make Germany a pioneer in autonomous driving. The Federal Council must also give its consent beforehand. With fully automated level four driving, the computer can take full control of the car for certain applications without being monitored by a human driver. In emergencies, the system should also bring the vehicle to a standstill on the side of the road. According to the Ministry of Transport, this technology could be used for shuttle connections or freight transport. "With the adoption of the law on autonomous driving, Germany has the chance to become the first and so far only nation that has created a framework for a future technology," said the President of the Association of the German Automobile Industry, Hildegard Müller. "Customers, industry and Germany as a business location will benefit enormously from this." The German automotive industry could become the "world market leader" in this field. In order to adopt the new legal framework, the federal states must now also agree in the Bundesrat. Müller warned that the law should be approved before the general election. Otherwise the country would lose "at least a year and a half" and put its technological progress at risk, the association president warned. In addition to the legal framework, the technical prerequisites would have to be created very soon. To do this, it was necessary to put the permit and operating regulations required for autonomous driving into force "as quickly as possible", demanded Müller.