Discussion of remote-control cars is likely to bring to mind Tamiya models doing backflips in the garden, with a kid holding a little box with an aerial in their hands.

But advances in technology could soon replace that mental image with something more life-sized. As in an actual car, bus or lorry being controlled remotely.

That vision is currently being realised by companies in the tech and mobility sectors. For example, Berlin-based Vay recently demonstrated vehicles being remotely controlled by ‘teledrivers’ at this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. The teledriver in Barcelona was able to drive an electric vehicle in Berlin, using what the company calls Low Latency Low Loss Scalable (L4S) technology. Vay claims that it’s the first company in Europe to drive a car without a person inside the vehicle on a public road.

Vay might have been making the most recent headlines, but remote driving is not a new phenomenon. In addition to being a partner of Vay, T-Systems – a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom Group – has already been dabbling in the field, working with AI developer Ottopia. Its trials have involved driving a car on a test track in Tel Aviv remotely from Stuttgart.

Another Vay partner, Ericsson, has also been working with manufacturer Scania on a remote-driving concept using 5G technology, with tests involving controlling a bus remotely.

The first step to full autonomy?

Car manufacturers and tech companies are currently investing billions in autonomous driving. We’re being promised that this will be available within the next few years. But there’s a bigger question: why do we need remote driving?

The companies developing this technology see it as pre-empting fully autonomous driving, using some of the automotive technology already available to enable driverless cars, but without waiting for the AI technology that will hand over full control to the vehicle.

There is some logic to this. Applications for remote driving include delivering rental cars to customers, for example, or fleet vehicles to employees’ homes. In the new era of mobility, there are also applications for car-sharing companies such as Zipcar: cars could be delivered to homes, rather than sitting in parking spaces, waiting to be picked up. Users also wouldn’t have to make A to B to A round-trip journeys, having to return a car to where they picked it up.

There’s also a case for buses to be driven remotely – although there are safety concerns with such large vehicles that need to stop regularly, not having someone onboard.

Managing the risks

Safety concerns don’t end there, either. As we all now understand, as soon as a new technology emerges, it’s accompanied by someone who can hack it. The hijacking of vehicles by ‘bad actors’, as they are dubbed by the security services, could lead to acts of terrorism, either by small groups or operations in rogue states, far away from the actual vehicle. The thought of troll farms pivoting to remote-control hacking doesn’t bear thinking about.

All of which should make us reassess the risk-reward calculation of remote-control driving. As with all new technological advances, rather than considering whether we can do it, the question is whether we should? This has arguably not been asked enough in recent decades, but the imminent prospect of vehicles being operated by drivers located in a distant land will perhaps focus the minds of those in government from signing off such technology.

Read the Law Commission’s recommendation to ban remotely controlled vehicles on UK roads and have your say on CIHT Connect.

Words by Craig Thomas