Photo: Volvo
If you happen to live in select areas of the United States, then over the past three years or so you’ve gotten used to seeing Volvo cars doing Uber’s bidding in the street. These partially self-driving vehicles have been involved in both good and bad things since the partnership between the two companies was signed in 2016.
Up until this week, all Volvo cars used in Uber’s test fleet were retrofitted to incorporate the hardware and software needed for them to drive by themselves. On Wednesday (June 12), Volvo presented the first “autonomous drive-capable production vehicle” developed with Uber’s needs in mind.
Essentially, the car shown by the Swedes is the good old XC90, only built in such a way as to allow fully autonomous operation. That means the car doesn’t need a supervising eye – Uber calls people used for this task mission specialists – to go about its business,
The car has been developed with one clear target in mind: to become part of Uber’s future self-driving fleet. As part of the 2016 agreement, Volvo will deliver in the coming years “tens of thousands of cars.”
The AV-ready systems on the XC90 will also be part of Volvo’s own autonomous fleet to be deployed from 2020.
What sets this special XC90 apart from the regular production SUV are the back-up systems included in it. Steering, braking and even the battery have backups ready to kick in should something go wrong with the primary systems, and bring the car to a safe stop.
Sadly for Volvo, a company which prides itself on having an exemplary safety record, one of the cars used in this project was involved in 2018 in the first recorded fatal pedestrian crash.
Also an XC90, the car was running in autonomous mode, with a human driver present, when it struck a woman on in Tempe, Arizona. As a result of her injuries, the woman later died.
Essentially, the car shown by the Swedes is the good old XC90, only built in such a way as to allow fully autonomous operation. That means the car doesn’t need a supervising eye – Uber calls people used for this task mission specialists – to go about its business,
The car has been developed with one clear target in mind: to become part of Uber’s future self-driving fleet. As part of the 2016 agreement, Volvo will deliver in the coming years “tens of thousands of cars.”
The AV-ready systems on the XC90 will also be part of Volvo’s own autonomous fleet to be deployed from 2020.
What sets this special XC90 apart from the regular production SUV are the back-up systems included in it. Steering, braking and even the battery have backups ready to kick in should something go wrong with the primary systems, and bring the car to a safe stop.
Sadly for Volvo, a company which prides itself on having an exemplary safety record, one of the cars used in this project was involved in 2018 in the first recorded fatal pedestrian crash.
Also an XC90, the car was running in autonomous mode, with a human driver present, when it struck a woman on in Tempe, Arizona. As a result of her injuries, the woman later died.
Google News