Skip to main content

Volvo to put 100 self-driving cars on Swedish roads in pilot project

busy-driver
Vava Vladimir Jovanovic/Shutterstock

Volvo is about to take its biggest step yet towards bringing a self-driving car to market with a pilot project that’ll put 100 such vehicles onto public roads in the Swedish city of Gothenburg.

The project, called ‘Drive Me’, will involve the autonomous cars using around 30 miles (50 km) of selected roads in the city, dealing with everyday driving conditions and situations.

Recommended Videos

The initiative, described by the car maker as “the world’s first large-scale autonomous driving pilot project”, will kick off next year with customer research and technology development, with the self-driving vehicles expected to take to the roads in 2017.

“Our aim is for the car to be able to handle all possible traffic scenarios by itself, including leaving the traffic flow and finding a safe ‘harbor’ if the driver for any reason is unable to regain control,” Erik Coelingh, technical specialist at Volvo, said in a release.

The project plans to explore a number of areas, such as how self-driving cars can benefit both society and the economy through improving traffic efficiency and road safety, as well as the necessary infrastructure changes needed for autonomous driving. The confidence of passengers inside such vehicles will also be evaluated, Volvo said.

The specially adapted Volvo XC90 cars set to take part in the Drive Me project have been defined as ‘Highly Autonomous Cars’, which essentially means all driving actions can be handled by the vehicle, although, according to Volvo, “the driver is expected to be available for occasional control but with a sufficiently comfortable transition time.”

Fully automated parking using a mobile app will also be possible – in other words, the car owner can exit the car before sending it off to a parking space.

Although Google often gets much of the media coverage with its work on driverless vehicles, most car companies have also, for a long time, been working on autonomous driving technology, much of it emerging from their work on crash-avoidance systems. Automakers such as Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Audi, and General Motors are all making steady progress in the field, with Volvo’s Drive Me project a clear indication of the industry’s determination to bring fully autonomous vehicles to car showrooms in the not-too-distant future.

[Source: Volvo] [Image: VV Jovanovic / Shutterstock]

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Beleaguered robotaxi startup Cruise lays off quarter of workforce
A Cruise autonomous car.

Beleaguered autonomous car startup Cruise has laid off 900 workers, equal to about a quarter of its workforce. The news comes a day after nine executives were also dismissed.

The General Motors-backed firm has suffered a series of setbacks in recent months, triggered by an accident on the streets of San Francisco in October when one of its self-driving cars came to a halt on top of a woman, pinning her to the ground just moments after she’d been hit by a human-driven car.

Read more
Cruise woes prompt production halt of fully driverless van
Interior of Cruise's Origin vehicle.

General Motors-owned  Cruise has halted production of its fully driverless vehicle -- the Origin -- just over a week after it suspended robotaxi operations nationwide following a number of troubling incidents involving its cars.

The news was announced by Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt during a meeting with staff on Monday, according to Forbes, which obtained audio of the gathering.

Read more
Cruise’s robotaxi service suspended by California regulator
A Cruise autonomous car.

Autonomous car startup Cruise has run into trouble in California after the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) said Tuesday it was suspending its deployment and driverless permits with immediate effect.

The dramatic intervention comes just a couple of months after General Motors-owned Cruise was given permission to operate robotaxi services around the clock, but also follows a number of troubling incidents involving self-driving Cruise cars on the streets of San Francisco, where it’s been carrying out tests on public roads in recent years.

Read more