Oxford: Start-up brings autonomous vehicle technology to market

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TBM Team

StreetDrone ONE, the first affordable autonomous-ready electric car designed to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicle technology, has been unveiled. StreetDrone ONE is being developed in partnership with Renault and deliveries will start in August.

Mark Preston, CEO of StreetDrone, said: “We know that the greatest innovations in self-driving technology need to come from a wide base of companies and developers, not from the privileged few that are wealthy enough to be able to test innovation in the real world. StreetDrone ONE means that everyone can become a part of the autonomous revolution.”

Around the world major car companies and wealthy corporates, such as Intel, Apple and Google, are spending billions of dollars researching and developing autonomous vehicle technology. Building and testing driverless capability is complex and expensive, meaning barriers to entry to this market are often insurmountable for all but the richest players.

StreetDrone ONE is designed to make it easier and cheaper for smaller institutions to get involved in the design of autonomous vehicle systems, whether that be for business or education:

Based on the Twizy EV, part of the Renault POM program, StreetDrone ONE is a hardware platform which gives developers the means to test driverless coding on a real-life test vehicle
StreetDrone OS (operating system) allows the car to talk to connected and autonomous software
The future of autonomous development needs great innovators, and StreetDrone invites people to join the revolution at www.streetdrone.org

StreetDrone is an ambitious Oxford-based start-up with a rich automotive, motorsports and entrepreneurial DNA. Founder Mark Preston has worked in Formula One (McLaren), and Formula E (Current Team Principal at TECHEETAH) while managing director Mike Potts is a successful entrepreneur and digital marketer (DBi, Havas, Expedia). The StreetDrone team says it is "passionate about putting the AV revolution into the hands of the many, not just the few".

TBM Team