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Driverless vehicles: connected and autonomous technologies

How government is supporting research, development and demonstration of connected and autonomous vehicles, such as driverless cars.

About connected and autonomous vehicles

Connected and autonomous vehicles incorporate a range of different technologies, facilitating the safe, efficient movement of people and goods.

Increased connectivity allows vehicles to communicate with their surrounding environment. This provides valuable information to the driver about road, traffic and weather conditions.

Vehicles with increasing levels of automation will use information from on-board sensors and systems to understand their global position and local environment. This enables them to operate with little or no human input (be driverless) for some, or all, of the journey.

Testing connected and autonomous vehicles in the UK

The UK is one of the best countries for car makers and others to develop and test these technologies because of our:

  • permissive regulations
  • thriving automotive sector
  • excellent research base and innovation infrastructure

Government activity

The government supports the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of connected and autonomous vehicles. This includes:

Find out more about government funded CAV research and development projects:

Contact the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV)

You can contact CCAV by emailing: enquiries@ccav.gov.uk.

Follow us @ccavgovuk.

Guidance and policies

Consultations

Research

Updates to this page

Published 14 August 2015
Last updated 11 April 2017 + show all updates
  1. Added announcement of £109m funding for driverless and low carbon projects.

  2. Autonomous vehicle research.

  3. Consultation on the use of automated vehicle technologies and advanced driver assistance systems in the UK.

  4. Added call for evidence on driverless vehicle testing facilities.

  5. Added information about another research and development competition to be launched later in the year.

  6. First published.