Elon Musk's 'secret' plan to put driverless cars on UK roads

Elon Musk's Tesla met with senior civil servants on multiple occasions to push the Government to allow its a fast-track route to UK roads, it has been revealed. Lobbyists for the electric car giant met officials from the (DfT) five times between August and October last year, reported.

Though the meetings were publicly recorded on departmental disclosure logs, the full details of what was discussed were only revealed in a Freedom of Information request. Minutes from one meeting in August showed the company's chief UK lobbyist telling officials the company's top priority was to ensure the new Government moved ahead with green-lighting autonomous vehicles (AV). Natasha Mahmoudian also offered a Tesla demo to Emma Ward, the DfT's director-general, who heads up road transport policy.

Records also showed Ms Ward noted a "nervousness around safety", with work required on responsibility and who would be responsible if self-driving cars fail on the road.

Tesla has invested heavily in AVs, and all vehicles produced after April 2019 include Autopilot, the company's auto steering and traffic-aware cruise control technology.

Since 2013, CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly predicted that the company would achieve fully autonomous driving within one to three years, but this has not yet been fulfilled.

Fully autonomous driving is classed as "Level 5" automation, whereas Tesla vehicles currently operate at Level 2, which requires continuous driver supervision.

In the UK, self-driving vehicles are currently only allowed to perform some tasks to assist drivers, including cruise control, lane-keeping, and parking assistance.

Mahmoudian expressed a desire in the meeting with DfT officials to be allowed to operate at higher levels of automation.

In the meeting minutes, she is noted to have said: "On AVs, all Tesla systems are level 2, which includes lane keeping, adaptive cruise control and lane changing. Keen to ensure level 2 systems work properly to allow for level 4 and 5 changes. Currently system manoeuvres are not allowed in the UK, keen to understand what needs to happen in order for this to be supported."

While the last Conservative Government aimed to have self-driving cars on the road by 2026, the Labour administration has pushed this back to 2027.