---
title: "Rolls-Royce Wants Autonomous Ships Roaming the Oceans By 2020"
description: "And we're not talking about the automaker's massive British land yachts."
date: "2017-02-13"
modified: "2017-02-13"
authors:
  - name: "Aaron Brown"
    job_title: "Staff Editor"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/aaron-brown"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/7602/rolls-royce-wants-autonomous-ships-roaming-the-oceans-by-2020"
categories:
  - "News"
tags:
  - "boats"
  - "Rolls-Royce"
  - "self-driving"
  - "Tech"
---

# Rolls-Royce Wants Autonomous Ships Roaming the Oceans By 2020

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*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

Rolls-Royce is working to bring crewless boats to the world's seas by 2020. The company believes that the self-driving vessels could lower the cost of sea transportation by up to 20 percent, *Sky News* reports.

According to the engineering company's vice president of innovation, Oskar Levander,[ Rolls-Royce will work on tugboats](<https://news.sky.com/story/rolls-royce-plans-to-launch-crewless-ships-by-2020-10765358>) and ferries before it attempts to bring the tech to internationally-traveling cargo ships.

"The development will start in a few countries, and these flag states will give the [vessel permission to operate](<https://news.sky.com/story/rolls-royce-plans-to-launch-crewless-ships-by-2020-10765358>) before we have international regulations in place," said Levander, according to *Sky News*.

Ship worker unions are worried that the implementation of this new tech could negatively affect its vessel-board laborers.

"The pace of change is a challenge to safety and there are also many unanswered questions about the legal implications of the way in which operational and management responsibilities are being [taken away from ships staff,](<https://news.sky.com/story/rolls-royce-plans-to-launch-crewless-ships-by-2020-10765358>)" said a spokesperson for the international maritime union, according to *Sky News.* "We are concerned that technology is seen simply as a way to cut jobs and cut costs."

Though unions and industry experts have expressed these concerns, Rolls-Royce claims that its autonomous ships would allow for an increase of jobs on land—and that the vessels would be safer than the current ships.

## Author
Aaron was previously a contributing writer with Jalopnik and has also written for Business Insider covering cars. When he's not in the office writing the news, you'll probably find him thrashing a beater car around a RallyCross.

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