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Volvo kicks-off Drive Me autonomous car trials
Date: 13 September 2016 | Author: Jack Carfrae
Volvo has completed production of an autonomous XC90 SUV, which marks the start of the firm's Drive Me project. The XC90 will be one of a number of cars trialled by families in Gothenburg on public roads as a test of the feasibility of autonomous vehicles.
The project aims to garner feedback from real users operating autonomous cars in everyday situations, as opposed to relying solely on research from engineers, prior to the firm's plans to formally begin selling such vehicles, which it expect to do by around 2021.
A similar scheme is due to launch in London in 2017 and the manufacturer is also considering parallel projects in cities in China.
"This is an important milestone for the Drive Me project," said Erik Coelingh, senior technical leader for active safety at Volvo, "customers look at their cars differently than us engineers, so we are looking forward to learn how they use these cars in their daily lives and what feedback they will give us."
The start of the Drive Me project follows Volvo's announcement in August of a tie-up with Uber for further tests around autonomous vehicle technology as well as the launch of a new company in conjunction with automotive industry supplier Autoliv earlier this month, to test autonomous driving software.
