Tesla’s bid to have driverless cars on the streets of the UK could be slowed by the UK’s winding roads and potholes. Tesla launched its driverless ‘robotaxis’ in Austin, Texas last week and representatives of Elon Musk’s firm have met with senior civil servants in Whitehall as it pushes for self-driving cars to be fast-tracked in the UK. Roads minister Lilian Greenwood said earlier this month that the Government would look to “accelerate” the introduction of new laws allowing driverless vehicles on UK roads, reports iNews.

However, experts fear the country’s complex road layout and millions of potholes could mean the mass rollout of driverless cars is as long as 20 years away in the UK.

Andy Marchant, traffic expert at mapping group TomTom, said: “Unlike the grid-like roads of American cities… the UK presents a far more complex landscape.”

“What we actually find is that the roads in the UK are comparatively complex to some of those in North America, and that’s why some of the outstanding companies that we have developing in the UK have started to roll out their technology in the US,” says Mark Cracknell, programme director at Zenzic, the organisation set up by the Government and the motor industry to accelerate the development of self-driving vehicles.

TomTom’s Marchant adds: “Much of the progress in AV technologies has been tested in cities with fundamentally different characteristics from London.

“Unlike the grid-like roads of American cities or the meticulously planned streets of newer urban environments across specific APAC (Asia-Pacific) regions, the UK presents a far more complex landscape.”

Cracknell believes that due to the often complex layouts of the UK’s 246,500 miles of roads, the true driverless nation could be somewhere between 15 and 20 years away.

“What we actually think, as the current trend of changes in vehicle ownership continues, is that you might have companies who operate fleets of these AVs, and you might subscribe to a car service, because it’s automated.

“You can probably see by the end of this decade we see that the technology is matured for this to happen. The regulations are coming in the next 18 months, and you’ll start to see the industry maturing.

“It could well be that you start to see companies springing up in kind of the early 2030s who are offering these kinds of solutions.”