Volvos will start driving themselves

The Swedish car-maker Volvo is testing, these days, a self-driving car on public roads within the ‘Drive me’ project.

In the near future, the city of Gothenburg will have the opportunity to see one hundred autonomous driving Volvos going about the streets.

‘Drive me’ focuses on how autonomous vehicles can improve traffic efficiency and road safety, infrastructure requirements, typical traffic situations suitable for autonomous vehicles, customers’ confidence in the cars, and how surrounding drivers interact with a self-driving car.

In addition, the cars will make use of the already implemented Volvo active accident avoidance system which includes devices such as cameras, radar, laser and available map data.

All of these features will come together under a cloud connection and a traffic control center by 2017.

A perk of the ‘Drive me’ project will be the self-parking feature where the driver can leave the car at the entrance of a parking lot and then go about his business while the car finds a vacant space and proceeds to parking itself.

‘If autonomous driving was to be fully implemented our expectations or our hopes are that we can see close to zero crashes in the system and of course that would be a large benefit. Of course we aim at making them autonomous but that doesn’t take the responsibility away from the driver,’ said Susanne Planath, the Swedish Transport System’s regional market and planning manager.