Welcome to the future; a future where you won’t have to take a driving test, a future where your car will drive itself to its’ own MOT, a future where your rental vehicle will drive straight from the van hire depot to your door. This does of course all depend upon an elite bunch of crackpot scientists, currently testing out a new range of autonomous driving technology.

For years engineers and scientists have been working on self driving cars and vans using a mix of video technology, computers and GPS to navigate and control the vehicle. The latest attempt to create an autonomous vehicle is being orchestrated by Italian company VisLab. The company website states “After about two decades of continuous research on Intelligent Vehicles, VisLab is preparing to set a new worldwide milestone in the field of Vehicular Robotics.  Autonomous vehicles are being prepared and tested to drive with no human intervention from Parma, Italy, to Shanghai, China, along a 13,000 km and 3 months unique journey.”  

Although the two vans (Piaggio Porter Electric vans) will be virtually autonomous, they will also be equipped with technicians to take control in the event of emergencies. The two vans are equipped with solar panels and they have a top speed of 37mph. Although there are high hopes for the expedition a recent demonstration in which the vans entered a congested traffic circle resulted in a communication breakdown between the vehicles, forcing the onboard technicians to take over.