Skip to main content

Volvo Cars and Uber join forces to develop autonomous driving cars

Swedish car maker Volvo Cars is to join forces with ride-sharing company Uber to develop next generation autonomous driving cars, alliance marks the beginning of what both companies view as a longer term industrial partnership. The two companies have signed an agreement to establish a joint project that will develop new base vehicles that will be able to incorporate the latest developments in autonomous driving technologies, up to and including fully autonomous driverless cars. The base vehicles will be
August 19, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Swedish car maker 7192 Volvo Cars is to join forces with ride-sharing company 8336 Uber to develop next generation autonomous driving cars, alliance marks the beginning of what both companies view as a longer term industrial partnership.

The two companies have signed an agreement to establish a joint project that will develop new base vehicles that will be able to incorporate the latest developments in autonomous driving technologies, up to and including fully autonomous driverless cars. The base vehicles will be manufactured by Volvo Cars and then purchased from Volvo by Uber. Volvo Cars and Uber are contributing a combined US$300 million to the project.

Both Uber and Volvo will use the same base vehicle for the next stage of their own autonomous car strategies. This will involve Uber adding its own self-developed autonomous driving systems to the Volvo base vehicle. Volvo will use the same base vehicle for the next stage of its own autonomous car strategy, which will involve fully autonomous driving.

The new base vehicle will be developed on Volvo Cars’ fully modular Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), which Volvo says is one of the most advanced car architectures in the world. It is currently used on Volvo Cars’ XC90 SUV, as well as the S90 premium sedan and V90 premium estate.

SPA has been developed as part of Volvo Cars’ US$1 billion global industrial transformation programme, which started in 2010, and has been prepared from the outset for the latest autonomous drive technologies as well as next generation electrification and connectivity developments.

The development work will be conducted by Volvo Cars engineers and Uber engineers in close collaboration. This project will further add to the scalability of the SPA platform to include all needed safety, redundancy and new features required to have autonomous vehicles on the road.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • RoadBotics clinches Detroit road assessment deal
    January 2, 2019
    RoadBotics has been chosen to use their machine-learning technology to assess the city of Detroit’s entire 4,185km road network. The company will work with PlanetM, a Michigan state networking partnership of mobility organisations, educational institutions, research and development groups and government agencies working together in the automotive sector. RoadBotics will provide Detroit transportation officials with its standard Artificial Intelligence pavement assessment as well as a new AI Maintenanc
  • £100m UK C/AV site opens next March
    November 30, 2020
    Assured CAV plans to develop and test vehicles safely 'at the limit of controllability'
  • Siemens: self-driving minibuses are the future of first-/last-mile
    February 26, 2020
    Markus Schlitt, CEO of intelligent traffic systems at Siemens Mobility, talks to ITS International about safety and why it is important for cities to offer additional shared and connected transit options.
  • Suppliers reshape to provide tolling and traffic management expertise
    August 2, 2013
    Jason Barnes examines the trend towards single source supply of complete tolling and traffic management solutions with some senior tolling industry figures. Only a few years back, the major tolling system suppliers were aggressively positioning themselves as one-stop shops for tolling solutions and operations. No sooner has that little flurry of innovation settled than another trend has emerged – tolling companies wanting to become major ITS suppliers as well. Various tolling company seniors have in recent