Soon the DGT's red label will arrive, but do you know which cars will carry it?

By 2025 we are already used to the different environmental labels of the DGT, and we all carry in our car the one that corresponds to it. But soon another label is going to arrive that will be displayed on the windscreens of cars. This one will be different from those we know so far and will have very specific characteristics.

This label is not intended to show the emissions of the cars that carry it, but rather to identify cars that use autonomous driving in test mode and that are travelling on Spanish roads. This initiative falls within the Framework Programme for the Safety and Technology Evaluation of Automated Vehicles (ES-AV), which will regulate tests of automated and remote driving on roads open to traffic.

This move is important, since it is about regulating tests of vehicles that are beginning to use autonomous driving systems and that are gradually gaining a place in various countries. The label will be mandatory for all vehicles carrying out tests with driver-assistance systems regulated by the DGT, so, in principle, there won’t be many of them.

This label will contain quite a lot of information about the vehicle being subjected to these tests. This information will include the registration plate, the authorisation number and a QR code that will contain all the necessary information so that the authorities can consult in real time everything relating to the vehicle.

A controlled rollout

The deployment of autonomous driving technology will take place gradually, in a three-phase process. The first phase will be very controlled and only up to three vehicles will be able to take part. Cars with level 2 SAE technology are excluded, that is, cars that do not have autonomous driving capability and require the presence and intervention of a driver. Furthermore, these cars will only be able to circulate with temporary plates and in restricted environments.

In the second phase, called Extensive, up to ten vehicles will be allowed to operate simultaneously. In this case, they will still have a support driver, although in this phase they may also carry definitive plates as well as temporary ones. The third phase is the Pre-deployment, and it is the last step before the definitive commercialisation of autonomous cars.

In this case, the number of vehicles is unlimited and the operator may be remote, so there will be no need for a driver in the vehicle. In the third phase, official EU registration plates may already be used, and the models will be in pre-approval, almost ready to operate without restrictions.

The aim of having this new DGT label is twofold. On the one hand, it guarantees safety and control, since it can be checked immediately which vehicles are taking part in these tests; and on the other, to offer visibility to these tests to other drivers and pedestrians, so that they are aware that this vehicle is operating autonomously.