Renault Group is advancing its autonomous vehicle strategy with a new approach that will explore full autonomy for public transport but not for private cars.

Renault Group and WeRide will demonstrate autonomous public transport in real-world conditions at the Roland-Garros 2024 tennis tournament

The French automaker said it would soon launch an ambitious level 4 offer for public transportation but would stick to providing assistance rather than autonomy for private cars.

The group said innovation “only makes sense if it is shared, economically accessible and genuinely useful to as many people as possible”.

When it comes to public transportation, Renault said it intends to be a real player in sustainable and autonomous mobility. To this end, it’s developing an electric, robotised and pre-equipped minibus platform that will host various automation solutions from specialist partners.

It’s now teaming up with WeRide, a leader in autonomous driving technologies, with a first demonstration of autonomous public transport in real-world conditions later this month during the Roland-Garros 2024 tennis tournament.

At the same time, while the group already offers driving assistance on most of its cars, it said further automation of some functions, with the aim of achieving complete vehicle autonomy, seems unlikely for the time being, “given current regulations, customer expectations and the cost of the complex technology involved”.

International consensus on automated and autonomous driving sets out six levels, ranging from level L0 without any driving assistance, to level L5, the ultimate level in which the vehicle would be fully autonomous, in all situations and without any on-board operator.

In the case of individual vehicles, Renault said it’s concentrating its efforts on the L2 or even L2+ level, with several driving assistances focused on supporting driver comfort and confidence, such as adaptive cruise control or lane keeping assist, or upcoming automatic overtaking function. Although assisted, the driver remains responsible for driving.

However, it warned of a “a significant technological complexity gap” between level L2 automation and level L3 autonomy, because the vehicle must be able to operate safely in complex environments with limited driver supervision.

And Renault said that at this stage, the cost to customers, in relation to the driving benefits, would “make demand insufficient or even anecdotal”.

It’s still working to ensure that the architecture of its vehicles can evolve towards the autonomous car “if expectations, regulations, or the cost of technologies make this breakthrough feasible”.

On the other hand, when it comes to public transportation, the group said it sees the relevance of offering autonomous vehicles, with an annual need estimated at several thousand minibuses over the next few years.

Based on its belief in the benefits of autonomous public transportation, Renault Group has been conducting trials for several years to define the best response to the needs of local authorities, such as the Mach 2 project announced in 2023, which from 2026 will see a fleet of automated electric minibuses integrated into the public transportation network of Chateauroux Metropole (France).

Such trials will enable the company to offer a robotised electric minibus platform based on the new Renault Master, able to integrate automation solutions from specialist partners such as EasyMile, Milla and WeRide.

Gilles Le Borgne, CTO Renault Group, said: “Renault Group is moving forward to implement its autonomous vehicle strategy. As a result, thanks to our experiments and our partners, the best in their fields, we will be in a position, well before the end of this decade, to propose a highly relevant range of autonomous, low-carbon minibuses to meet the growing needs of the regions.”