Renault Group announced on Wednesday that its experiments in autonomous public transport would eventually lead to the offer of a robotized electric minibus platform based on the large Master van.

While the automotive industry has long been debating the speed of deployment of driverless vehicles, which is uncertain in view of the investment required and regulatory imperatives, the Renault Group is favoring driver assistance solutions for its cars rather than true autonomy.

However, for mass transit on defined routes, it intends to go further with vehicles capable of integrating automation solutions from specialized partners such as EasyMile, Milla or WeRide.

With the latter, Renault will be testing autonomous electric shuttles during the French Open at Roland Garros, and with the Chinese company is aiming for large-scale commercial deployment of vehicles with a level of autonomy known as "Level 4", i.e. capable of handling driving situations on their own, within a defined operational domain, with remote supervision, but without an on-board operator.

"More flexible, autonomous minibuses will be able to operate 24/7. The additional costs of robotization and automation can be offset by the absence of operators on board," explained Renault in a press release.

Alongside autonomous shuttles, a number of players are vying for a share of the robot-taxi market, including Californian electric vehicle specialist Tesla and Chinese VTC giant Didi Global. (Reported by Gilles Guillaume; edited by Zhifan Liu)