Next week, Uber will unveil its newest self-driving Volvo in Washington as it works to eventually deploy vehicles without drivers under limited conditions.
The company said that the new production XC90 will be assembled by Volvo Cars in Sweden and will have factory-installed steering wheels and braking systems designed for computer rather than human control.
Previously, Uber had purchased about 250 Volvo XC90 SUVs and retrofitted them for self-driving use.
The new vehicles — known by the internal code number 519G and under development for several years – are safer, more reliable and will “soon” replace the older vehicles in Uber’s fleet, said Eric Meyhofer, Head of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group.
“This is about going to production,” said Meyhofer in an interview. “We’re still in a real hybrid state. We have to get there and we’re not going to get to thousands of cars in a city overnight. It’s going to be a slower introduction.”
The new XC90 vehicles have an interior fish-eye camera to scan for lost items, Uber said. They also do not have sunroofs since the self-driving vehicles have large sensors on the roof and are equipped with auto-close doors to prevent an unsafe departure. These vehicles also have several back-up systems for both steering and braking functions as well as battery back-up power and new cybersecurity systems.
Volvo Cars Chief Executive Hakan Samuelsson said in a statement that “by the middle of the next decade we expect one-third of all cars we sell to be fully autonomous”.
Volvo and Uber said in 2017 that the rideshare company planned to buy up to 24,000 self-driving cars from Volvo from 2019 to 2021 using the self-driving system developed by Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group. An Uber spokeswoman said that the company plans “to work with Volvo on tens of thousands of vehicles in the future.”
The market for autonomous vehicles is heating up, as automakers around the world are working to deploy self-driving vehicles.
Ford’s autonomous vehicle unit – Argo AI – launched its new fleet of self-driving test vehicles dubbed the ‘Ford Fusion Hybrid’ in Detroit. It also opened a research center in Tel Aviv, Israel. Last year, General Motors sought permission from U.S. regulators to deploy a ride-sharing fleet of driverless cars without steering wheels or other human controls before the end of this year, while Alphabet Inc’s Waymo is operating a robo-taxi service in Arizona and has partnered with Lyft to serve more riders.
Analysts and tech enthusiasts around the world have their eye on this race to see which company emerges victorious in the autonomous vehicle space.
