Self-driving cars and connected tech could generate up to £66bn for the UK

A new report suggests the UK economy could benefit from the roll-out of connected and automated mobility (CAM) technologies to the tune of some £66 billion. To put that into context, in 2022 the UK Automotive sector accounted for £13.3 billion to UK plc.

So how does the motor industry multiply its value to the economy five-fold? There are three key areas, according to the report. Firstly, passenger cars fitted with autonomous driving features, like lane-keep assist and enhanced infotainment packages.

Secondly, automated passenger services like buses and driverless ride-hailing and thirdly, through automated deliveries, logistics and industrial vehicles improving their productivity.

Obviously, the report makes big on the fact the value doesn’t just come from manufacturing the vehicles themselves or the components, but also from the integration with the connected world, infrastructure and services “spawned by the application of the technology”.

It reckons £34 billion will come from real economic impact, where the other £32 billion of projected revenue will come from what it calls 'welfare impact', e.g. the lower volume of insurance claims and payouts as a result of fewer accidents.

Though the report makes a fair amount of assumptions about what we’re likely to adopt in the future based on past behaviours, there has already been a number of corroborating calculations from other studies showing that car tech features like autonomous emergency braking and blindspot assist has reduced the number of accidents by around 24 per cent.

Despite the frenzied concern about job losses when the robots move it, according to research by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) and Innovate UK, there’s potential for almost 350,000 new jobs within the CAM area, too.

The good (albeit speculative) news doesn’t stop there, either. Since so-called CAM technologies are, as the report defines, those that “enables vehicles to safely drive themselves with no human input in some places and conditions, and to connect with each other and the infrastructure”, it reckons almost 4,000 lives will be saved and, like we mentioned, some 60,000 serious accidents should be prevented.

On the money side, the report suggests that if earlier adoption of CAM could be achieved – say by five years – as much as £45 billion additional revenues could be realised by 2040. That calculation factors in the potential costs associated with increased vehicle usage, bringing the total impact to £111 billion – we're betting the Treasury could make good use of that (perhaps by filling in some pot holes, eh).

While all these big numbers sound very impressive, there’s no getting away from the real-world challenges to consider. For starters, there’s a ton of work to be done on the regulation front. Financing the whole shift to more technologically advanced vehicles isn’t going to be cheap and plenty of naysayers don’t believe the technology is needed (especially if you mention carbon-offsetting).

There’s also a massive need to train and upskill people in software development, robotics, cybersecurity and data analytics and the report acknowledges, albeit not in so few words, the eternal human resistance to change.

To try and explain the size of the opportunities at play in a few words here is nigh-on impossible, but the private sector and UK government clearly thinks there’s a reasonable pay day to be had, having invested over £600 million since 2015.

If you have a cuppa and spare few hours, you can pore over the report yourself, and then tell us what you think below.