World first autonomous vehicle journey

BP and Oxbitica have successfully trialled a vehicle that can travel over 180km autonomously.

The vehicle successfully navigated obstacles including junctions, narrow paths and multiple terrains at BP’s Lingen refinery in Germany.

The exercise was carried out in an array of weather conditions during the day and night, and was overseen by UK-based autonomous vehicle software company, Oxbotica, who BP recently partnered with in a $13mln equity investment.

According to Morag Watson BP’s SVP of digital science and engineering, the self-driving vehicle will enhance human operations and improve safety by increasing the monitoring for irregular conditions, faulty equipment and security threats.

'Intelligent technology like this helps us make the incremental but equally critical improvements to our operations, so we can continue to focus on delivering the energy the world needs in the way that it wants…This relationship is an important example of how BP is leveraging automation and digital technology that we believe can improve safety, increase efficiency and decrease carbon emissions in support of our net-zero ambition.'