11.04.2026 –, Seminarraum 3 Sprache: English
A talk about current developments in automated driving from an industry and academia perspective. The talk will go into likely urban mobility impacts, how we can demand societal benefit and build social movements to prevent a private grab of public transport.
Automated mobility is being funded with astronomic amounts of research funding, with one single Horizon Europe call for projects for October 2026 to be rewarded with 100 million Euros. Why, however, is there so little public debate around automated driving? This is not a coincidence and moments of resistance have occurred in San Francisco and Los Angeles. However, widespread resistance is not occurring due to a lacking societal learning and participation process - whether or not automated driving is a negative or positive thing is, to wide society, unknown. One thing is clear, though: the automobile industry is HORNY for automated driving and the academy is following suit, producing work around the topic that is highly speculative and selective.
This is a good reason to get suspicious. With spreading automated taxi services moving from testing to operation outside of Europe and realistic scenarios consolidating, it's time for an overview: what should we expect, and how can we demand for this technology to be used to benefit society.
Elmer works on mobility and (geo)tech, most recently on automated driving. He is active in the data task force of Deutsche Wohnen & Co enteignen and is excited about mobility social movements like Changing Cities, Berlin autofrei and VW enteignen. He strives for a future with public benefit tech, decommodified housing and mobility - particularly a free public mobility system and collectivised housing.