Why the UAE and Saudi Arabia are in the fast lane with development of driverless cars

Middle East countries including the UAE and Saudi Arabia are in a strong position to begin widespread use of autonomous vehicles, an expert in driverless cars has said.

Srinivas Peeta, director of Georgia Tech's Autonomous and Connected Transportation Laboratory, told The National that it makes sense countries with a history of rapid technology adoption, strong infrastructure and relatively tranquil weather might be able to begin using autonomous vehicles faster than others.

“If you have the roads which are robust in terms of their quality and the road signage and other things are clear … they [the UAE and Saudi Arabia] are well suited,” he explained during a tour of the lab, which included a room where human interactions with autonomous vehicles are tested.

His comments come right before the UAE is set to host the Dubai World Congress for Self-Driving Transport, which will take place next week. The event is billed as “the world’s leading platform for self-driving tech, future mobility, and integrated transport systems”.

Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi launched its first pilot programme for autonomous delivery vehicles. The trial, taking place in Masdar City, involves vehicles that use advanced smart mobility systems and artificial intelligence that can navigate urban areas and deliver orders without human intervention.

Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) also recently signed a preliminary agreement with Pony.ai, a Chinese autonomous driving company, to start trials of driverless vehicles in the emirate by the end of the year.

Last year, Uber announced it would begin using self-driving cars from Chinese-owned WeRide in its Abu Dhabi fleet, expanding the emirate's autonomous public transport options and boosting its sustainability push.

“It’s a terrific team, and we offer WeRides now in Abu Dhabi, and recently announced that expansion into Dubai as well,” Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said during a technology policy conference in Washington in April.

That same year, the UAE made history by organising the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL), a self-driving vehicle race in which a professional race car driver faced off against fully autonomous vehicles. As for Saudi Arabia, during a recent technology exhibition in Riyadh, Elon Musk announced that Tesla Motors would be bringing its Robotaxis to the kingdom in the not-too-distant future.

And Uber recently teamed up with Saudi-backed electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors and US robotics company Nuro with the aim of eventually launching a global robotaxi programme.

Yet for all the excitement and rapid advancements in the autonomous vehicle industry, Mr Peeta warned that several unknowns could impact the projected rapid embrace of autonomous vehicles. He pointed to the Middle East's climate.

“We always talk about weather impacting things,” he said. “In that region you can also have dust storms, which could occasionally pose challenges to the autonomous vehicles.”

He added that every country has different driving styles, such as lane discipline, that could impact the success of driverless vehicle roll-outs. “Those things can always be challenging,” he said, adding that for all the research done in the autonomous vehicle sector, predicting every potential scenario is almost impossible.

It's worth noting, however, that Tesla has been known to bring over vehicles to the UAE to put them through the paces for “extreme heat and durability testing”.

The final potential hurdle – not unique to the Middle East, according to Mr Peeta – is public sentiment.

In 2025, only 13 per cent of US drivers said they trust self-driving vehicles, according to polling from the American Automobile Association – a slight increase from the survey results last year that showed 9 per cent of drivers trusted the technology.

The survey also indicated that 53 per cent said that they would not choose to take a ride in autonomous vehicles, although those in the Millennial and Generation X age groups seemed more open to the idea.

With consumer fear still relatively high, Mr Peeta said in countries with stable existing transport infrastructure and road systems, driverless vehicles will win public support at a faster rate.

“Where the roads are robust and people are already following traffic rules, that's where we'll start to see autonomous vehicles become the norm,” he said.

All public perception issues aside, investments in the autonomous vehicle sector show no sign of slowing down. Globally, the value of the global autonomous vehicle market is forecast to reach about $2.3 trillion by 2032, from about $121.7 billion in 2022, data from Precedence Research shows.

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