Today, the Vice-President of the Riigikogu and former Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas, and the Deputy Chairman of the E-Estonia Support Group and the Environment Committee Kalle Palling sent a letter to five leading manufacturers of autonomous cars. In their letter, they are inviting major international companies to invest in the development projects of autonomous cars in Estonia.

“Estonia’s advantage is the speed and flexibility of its legislative process; the introduction of 5G mobile networks by Telia and Ericsson in 2018; a strong academic and cyber defence competence and day-to-day practice; and nationwide electric vehicle charging network. All these conditions combine to create a very attractive value proposition. We hope to see international autonomous car manufacturers come to Estonia to develop their technologies, but also to test the actual services,” said Taavi Rõivas, the Vice-President of the Riigikogu. 

Deputy Chairman of the E-Estonia Support Group Kalle Palling added that in order to catch the eye of large international companies, Estonia must be able to compete with other countries that have taken similar steps.

“Estonia has everything that it takes to become the best place in the world for developing autonomous cars. This is why we are willing to allow the technology to be tested on public roads. This is a massive competitive edge compared to most countries where autonomous cars can only be used in a restricted area set aside for the purpose,” Palling said.

Last Thursday, the joint expert group of the Government Office and the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced that Estonia is opening its roads to autonomous cars. 

Taavi Rõivas and Kalle Palling sent the invitation to the management boards of Daimler, Tesla, Uber, Volvo, and Waymo (formerly Google car). 

AutonomousVehicles_DieterZetsche
AutonomousVehicles_ElonMusk
AutonomousVehicles_HåkanSamuelsson
AutonomousVehicles_JohnKrafcik
AutonomousVehicles_TravisKalanick