China: the first highway designed for self-driving cars

The innovation of the day is the first highway designed for autonomous cars.

It opens to traffic this week in China.

As soon as a car enters it, it will be guided and taken care of like the carriages of a train.

It will also be the first guaranteed freeway without traffic jams.

Because the road has been crammed with sensors.

They discuss with the on-board computer of each moving car and adjust the speed, braking, safety distances so that the traffic remains fluid in all circumstances.

So you can let go of the wheel and read your newspaper or take a nap.

You said it, it will be like in science fiction movies, where the car fits into a kind of little train as soon as it enters the highway.

But will this be reserved for self-driving cars?

No not necessarily.

It just needs to be able to adjust its speed to that of the car in front (a simple adaptive cruise control is enough), and of course, that the car can communicate with the road to get the information.

Otherwise, we will be asked to stay on a special "unconnected cars" lane.

Advantage: in China, most vehicles are recent.

And the government is pushing for 50% of cars sold in 2025 to have a minimum of automation and connection.

The objective being, once again, to put an end to the endless traffic jams.

Are these things that we could see happening in Europe?

Yes, because in Europe too, we are pushing to adopt these technologies. But the goal is rather to reduce the number of accidents. It started with the black boxes which will be compulsory from next year. Soon, the car will also be able to interact with the lights, the road and the signs to be warned of accidents, bad weather or quite simply a hole in the road.