One of Britain’s most promising autonomous vehicle firms is deploying its technology overseas this year, as potential UK buyers wait for others to use it first. In his first interview since becoming chief executive in March, Paul Newman, co-founder of Oxa, says he had hoped more UK companies would “lean in” and be early adopters of the technology. Despite raising $103 million from investors in March including $50 million from the government’s National Wealth Fund, Newman says he expected the first full rollout of its industrial mobility autonomy systems to take place on a site in the Middle East this autumn. Oxa’s systems can be integrated into new vehicles and retrofitted to existing ones. It specialises in vehicles such as lorries and towing vehicles that are used in ports, large industrial complexes and airports, which is a $31 billion global market. Its software and hardware make the vehicles autonomous, saving the operators hundreds of thousands of pounds in labour costs. Newman, 53, a professor in information engineering at the University of Oxford, says: “It will probably start through an export opportunity that we have. We built it here. We are going to be operating it in a different country. I really would like your readers to be going, ‘That just sounds mad. Surely in all of our ports, all of our airports and all of our yards, we should be getting on this programme.’” He says the use of autonomous systems to control vehicles on industrial sites is “inevitable”, but that it will not happen overnight and needs partners willing to work with it over time. Oxa has proven that its system can be deployed safely, securing early this year a European CE safety mark for the deployment of its systems in a four-wheel electric tow tug with an eight-tonne