Can you drive a van into a group of people without even being physically present though ?
Yes. https://www.psu.edu/news/campus-life/story/hackers-who-remot...
Even without vulnerabilities like that, something like https://comma.ai/openpilot could very likely be used in the same way ArduPilot was used in the recent Ukrainian drone attacks.
easier than a drone, technically. using the same tools and techniques too.
a van is just a bigger, more inherently stable drone.
> Can you drive a van into a group of people without even being physically present though ?
It's probably totally doable by now. We literally have self-driving cars.