Regular people are one step closer to getting behind the wheel of autonomous cars, thanks to Volvo. The first Volvo XC90 SUV slated to be used in the company?s Drive Me pilot project rolled off an assembly line Friday morning at an advanced manufacturing facility near Volvo?s Gothenburg, Sweden, headquarters.
It?s the first of approximately 100 vehicles that will be produced for the autonomous-driving experiment. In it, everyday motorists will be able to use advanced self-driving features on public roads. Drive Me is expected to begin next spring in Gothenburg, to be followed by a similar effort in London; Volvo is also looking to expand the program to as yet unnamed cities in China.
Volvo sees real-customer testing as important before autonomous cars see widespread deployment; engineers, academics and government officials all want to evaluate how humans interact with these machines. ?Customers look at their cars differently than us engineers, so we are looking forward to learning how they use these cars in their daily lives and what feedback they will give us,? said Erik Coelingh, senior technical leader for active safety systems at Volvo.
Currently, Volvo offers semi-autonomous functionality on its 90-series cars. The automaker’s Pilot Assist technology gives gentle steering inputs to keep cars aligned within lane markings; the car doesn’t have to be following another vehicle for the lane-keeping tech to work. The XC90s being used in Drive Me will be more ...