How could the lowly electric Renault ZOE and Nissan Leaf from rental company Elmo Rent be allowed to drive without someone behind the wheel when today’s most advanced car – the very expensive Mercedes-Benz S-Class – still requires the driver to hold his car. eyes on the road and hands on the wheel when he leaves motorways with a central divider or when he exceeds 60 km/h?
The contradiction is only apparent. As much as Mercedes-Benz strives to automate driving to one day turn the driver into a simple passenger, Estonian company Elmo Rent works more humbly to simply control the car remotely. In other words, decisions are made by a human who remotely acts on the steering wheel, accelerator, brake and transmission. His movements printed in front of the computer are reproduced on the car’s control buttons, thanks to software developed internally at Elmo Rent. “We take advantage of the fact that the rules do not specify whether the driver must be in the vehicle,” emphasizes Enn Lannsoo, founder in 2013 of this Estonian sharing company. “So we put our driver in our premises in front of a computer screen.”
Remote driving already exists: it takes over when the self-driving car loses its bearings
The rental cars in Elmo Rent’s colors are therefore far from deserving of the qualification “autonomous car”. If the driver’s seat is actually empty for someone recording the time on certain trips at a reduced speed, a driver acts remotely on his order. Whereas in the future autonomous car at level 5, all decisions will be made by the artificial intelligence on board – very rarely by humans, who will only intervene from a distance to resolve a supposedly rare conflict situation.
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This level 5 autonomy currently only exists on overpriced prototypes. Only level 3 semi-autonomous driving systems are allowed. In Europe, only two territories are involved: last week, France followed Germany’s lead and became the second member state of the European Union to approve Level 3 semi-autonomous driving systems.
On a scale where the fifth and final level represents the ultimate delegation, when the machine takes on all driving tasks under all circumstances, level 3 gives the driver permission to let go of the wheel. But only on lanes separated by a central safety barrier and never at more than 60 km/h. The day is therefore still far away when the driver can indulge in a siesta and let the car drive itself.
No need to worry about the parking meter: at the end of the lease, the car drives itself to its next customer
The difference in approach is enough to convince Estonian government authorities to give the green light to Elmo Rent to experiment with its remote driving system on roads open to public traffic with twenty remote-controlled rental cars. The company’s aim is to give itself “a significant competitive advantage” by sparing customers the journey to the car park in the car they have previously reserved. Ditto at the end of the rental when the car leaves without anyone driving to join its next customer.
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“The benefit of remote control technology is particularly evident in large cities where parking and emission problems are significant,” argues Enn Lannsoo. “When the customer reaches his destination, he indicates the end of his journey via our application. The message reaches one of our supervising drivers, who takes over and drives the vehicle to the address specified by the next renter.” The advantage is significant for the city customer, who does not have to find an authorized parking space.
Without returning to the rental company, the car connects rentals and customers for better profitability
With remote driving, Elmo Rent hopes to lower its operating costs. “Remote control only takes place between two rentals, to transfer the vehicle from one customer to another and maximize their occupancy rate,” explains Enn Lannsoo. “Thanks to home delivery, the cars in our fleet are parked only 40% of the time, compared to an average of 95% for a private vehicle.”
The Estonian authorities previously gave Elmo Rent permission to test its remote driving prototype (an electric Nissan Leaf equipped with six cameras and Elmo software) only in the Tallinn city area. Almost a year later, in September 2022, the company received official permission to start testing the remote control technology in the rest of the country. With this precaution, anyway: until the end of the year 2022, a supervisor will be installed on board the vehicle, ready to take over from the remote driver in the event of a system failure. “His presence will help refine the uniqueness of remote control technology,” says Enn Lannsoo, who hopes “to put the first 20 remote-controlled electric cars into service this year”.
By the end of the year, the technicians should also have completed grafting their technology onto the Renault ZOE. This French electric car represents about a third of the fleet of 140 Elmo Rent rental cars. A very popular model here, which could help the Estonians convince a French company to pay for the operating license for their remote driving technology.