What is Bluebus Autonom®? It is a 6m long, fully electric bus. But unlike the traditional Bluebus, it is equipped with everything needed by Navya to offer autonomous driving at level 4. It is not the “bob” co-pilot who moves the wheel a little (aka autonomous driving). No, it’s level 4, which means the driver can completely rely on the machine in certain conditions.

This new step marks the culmination of a perfect collaboration between the Navya and Bluebus teams to automate an existing mass-produced vehicle. The two teams were able to demonstrate their ability to jointly produce an industrial series in a very short implementation time. This step is part of the EFIBA project (Emergence Filière Industrielle Bus Autonome) under the France Relance program.

The purpose of these first two Autonomous Bluebuses was to validate the serial assembly of the Navya ecosystem. In one month of assembly, the Bolloré and Navya teams managed to integrate everything on the robot bus assembly platform. The buses integrate the set of Navya Pack® sensors and the Navya Drive® and Navya Operate® software blocks. These work with the control system developed by the Bolloré group for its bus.

For Navya, this demonstrates its ability to integrate any mounting system and proves to other manufacturers that they can call on them. For Bluebus, assembly remains in Quimper, on the Bluebus assembly line. No delivery to another workshop, everything is integrated. It is the first autonomous level 4 bus. It is also the bus with a “completely fixed” battery, the famous LMP alias Lithium metal Polymer technology from Bluesolutions.

Bluebus 6m has a 126 kWh battery capacity and UTAC gives it a 280 km range.

What is a level 4 autonomous bus for?

Both fully autonomous Navya shuttles make it possible to imagine the creation of automatic lines at low speed. As much as Bluebus Autonom, one wonders what it is for? The driver must remain alert and regain control of the drive if the machine asks him to. It should make driving less tiring for drivers.

This also theoretically makes it safer, as the built-in sensors and software are designed to be more careful than a human. But the mistakes should not be ignored. This is also why the two assembled vehicles must now leave for the rolling phase on the test track. We are still far (not too far) from the robot taxi in the movie Total Recall.