Navya gets €7.5M subsidies from France government to pilot four high-tech projects. It’ll work on a driverless Bluebus e-bus

Navya has been awarded 7.5 million euros of subsidies (mainly non-repayable) to pilot four high-tech projects, three of which are part of the Government initiative ‘France Relance’ program.
The France Relance program was introduced by the Prime Minister in September 2020 and its objective is to build the France of 2030 with 100 billion euros deployed to promote strategic initiatives and face the Covid-19 crisis.

One of the projects, carried out with Actia, Bluebus and Keolis, is aimed at developing and industrializing an autonomous bus based on the Bluebus electric bus.

Navya subsidies within France Relance program

The different initiatives are as follows, Navya explains:

• The DLS project (Deep Learning Segmentation) aims to collect data from the road environment and to quantify the detected obstacles by using Artificial Intelligence and Big Data modules. The objective is to feed the database and datasets to recognize changes in the road environment, dynamically modify the reference map and adapt the vehicle’s behaviour.
• The 5G-AV project (5G for Autonomous Vehicles) intends to operationally implement the technological contributions of 5G in autonomous driving for the benefit of customers, in partnership with Orange. In particular remote assistance, cybersecurity and the processing of data analyzed by Artificial Intelligence deported to the operators’ computing centres. This initiative will follow on from the level 4 fully autonomous experimentation carried out in Châteauroux in June 2020. This project is a prize-winner of the France Relance program.
• The A.I.V. project (Autonomous Industrial Vehicles) consists of developing an innovative concept of tractors equipped with autonomous driving technologies and associated services, adapted to the specificities of applications in the airport, industrial, mass distribution and e-commerce sectors. This project will accelerate the development of the AT135 within the SOFVIA joint venture between Navya and Charlatte Manutention. This project is a prize-winner of the France Relance program.
• EFIBA (Emergence of the Autonomous Bus Sector) is an initiative led by a consortium composed of Actia, Bluebus and Keolis wishing to prepare the French sector for the autonomous bus market. The ambition of this project is to develop and industrialize an automated version of the Bluebus electric buses, from their design to their marketing. This project is a prize-winner of the France Relance program.

“I would like to thank the Ministers Bruno Le Maire, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Cédric O and Jean-Baptiste Djebbari who, through this France Relance funding, have recognized the quality of Navya’s expertise at the heart of tomorrow’s autonomous and connected vehicles. These new resources will further reinforce Navya’s strong financial position in the final sprint to reach commercial Level 4 autonomous driving solutions”, says Pierre Lahutte, CEO of Navya.

“The mobility sector is subject to major changes for which companies such as Navya provide innovative and concrete solutions. Already recognized for the technological advances it has achieved, in particular with the first fully autonomous level 4 operation launched in June 2020, Navya will be able, thanks to this public funding, to contribute even more to the development of autonomous vehicles in France and thus defend a French development model for autonomous mobility”, says Anne-Marie Idrac, High Representative for the autonomous vehicle development strategy and former State Secretary for Transport, President of the RATP and then of the SNCF.