(LD):...The
Government intend the Bill to apply to levels 4 and 5, but, as
written, it could apply to some vehicles at level 3. I want to
draw attention to a recent court case in which a man was
prosecuted for driving a Tesla S down the M1 near Hemel Hempstead
while sitting in the passenger seat—there was no passenger in the
driver’s seat. He was on autopilot. That is described
by Tesla as a suite of driver assistance
features including traffic-aware cruise control, which assists
with acceleration and deceleration, and auto-steer. Although the
reports I read did not specify it, I imagine that the vehicle
also has automated emergency braking, because that is quite
common in a range of cars. That is level 3, but it meets the
definition in the Bill at Clause 1(1)(b), that vehicles are,
“capable, in at least some circumstances or situations, of safely
driving themselves”...
(Lab): My Lords, I was on the Science and Technology
Committee and we discussed automated vehicles. After our session,
I met some industrialists—people making and selling cars—in the
context of automated vehicles. One of the things it was suggested
that the Secretary of State might consider—it would come under
Clause 1, referred to earlier—is that people purchasing vehicles,
particularly those that are partially or wholly automatic, should
understand the properties of the vehicle. There were some
examples this year or last year when someone had a blackout and
the vehicle took over control and moved them. So it seems that
already some of these level 3 properties are not well understood
by the people buying the cars. For some people, as I understand
it, once you have paid by credit card or hire purchase the car
arrives at your front door and off you drive. Even Tesla makes
you have 95 minutes of training before you buy and use one of its
cars. This is an area covered by subsection (1)(b) that the
Secretary of State should be considering very strongly...
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department
for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con):...This is
broadly equivalent, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said,
to levels 4 and 5, as defined by the Society of Automotive
Engineers—the SAE—and does not apply to vehicles with lower
levels of automated technology or utilising advanced driver
assistance systems, no matter how sophisticated. It does not
apply to level 3 vehicles, and the Tesla vehicle
the noble Baroness mentioned would not be covered. We will come
to this point later, but level 3 cars still require monitoring by
a driver, so they are not fully automatic and are not covered by
the Bill. It also only applies to automated vehicles that are or
might lawfully be used on roads or in other public places in
Great Britain...
: You
are still not explaining how people will understand and be
informed of this. Is there no regulation for that? As I
understand it, even manufacturers are conscious of this being
uncontrolled. When you buy such a car, you do not know what kind
of information you will have and how you are going to be taught
about it. As I mentioned, British cars are being provided with
little information, unlike the Tesla car. Even for that
complicated car they apparently need an hour and a half or
whatever it is for training. Is anything being done about
that?
:...The clause
as written would include individual adaptations by enthusiasts,
which would be a very uncertain path to go down. Indeed, if a car
manufacturer decided to adapt a current level 3 model—for
example, the Tesla S, to which I referred
earlier—to a level 4 car, I am absolutely sure
that Tesla, in line with standard motor
industry practice, would call it the “Tesla S Elite” or something
similar. It would be a different model and therefore it would not
be an adaptation in the meaning set out in relation to the
Secretary of State’s list. What I am really pointing out here is
that the concept of “adapted” vehicles would narrowly include
those adapted on a one-off basis by individual enthusiasts, and
therefore it would not seem reasonable to expect the Secretary of
State and the Department for Transport to have the expertise to
know whether that was safe...
:...I do
understand the concern around this, as we have not yet seen such
vehicles in the marketplace, but, given that we cannot predict
how these vehicles will evolve, it is important to ensure that we
do not prematurely preclude such technology—or, as the noble and
gallant Lord, Lord , put it, slam the door
on potential innovation. Happily, it would not be up to the
Secretary of State or, indeed, the Department for Transport, to
decide whether an adapted vehicle was safe. Whether it was a
vehicle adapted by an enthusiast in their back yard, or with a
software update from Tesla, it would be subject to the same
type of approval process before it could be legally used on our
roads. So I can reassure noble Lords that a vehicle with any such
adaptation would be on the Clause 1 list—and therefore have
insurance, and be on our roads legally—only if the adaptation was
considered safe...
(Con):...I
believe that the drafting, as we have it, of Clause 4(1)(b)
should be changed to the wording in Amendment 23. It is perfectly
easy to programme the software so that the vehicle will demand
itself to be updated and will not move unless it is done. Given
that this is safety-critical software, we ought to make certain
that this vehicle itself has enough ability to know whether it is
up to date. It can easily do that with modern software systems.
So making certain that the vehicle updates itself before it moves
from wherever it is in a parked and deactivated position will be
perfectly easy. Nowadays, with the design of
the Tesla vehicle, all the updating is
done automatically—sometimes without the knowledge of the owner
or driver. It is easy for the manufacturers to do and a much more
modern way of looking at it than the drafted wording in this
Bill...
:...All noble
Lords, including myself, are in the same place on this. We expect
that vehicles will not be deemed safe to use, and therefore will
not be placed on the list and covered by insurance, unless the
safety-critical software is in place. It is a complex issue; we
still do not know exactly how the software is going to work. We
see some good examples from Tesla and Apple, but this is part
of extensive conversations at an international level, with
manufacturers and other countries, to understand how best to deal
with this...
:...My Lords,
Amendment 27 is a probing amendment, triggered when I first read
this Bill, which happened at about the same time as the very
first fatal accident in America from a Tesla vehicle, when it was it was
speculated in the press that Tesla would not release the data
from the vehicle because it had proprietary value
to Tesla. In fact, as I understand
it, Tesla released the data in due
course. However, I could imagine circumstances in which the owner
or manufacturer of an automated vehicle believed that the less
which was found out about this accident, the better for
them...
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