The Drive Me London trial is aimed at producing data that can be used to develop fully autonomous cars suitable for use in the real-world. “Going down a stretch of road, the vehicle takes the responsibility for extreme events”. Volvo has always been a name synonymous with safety, so it seems fitting that the company is leading the way on self-driving cars.
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It’s not hard to foresee a future where “manual” cars are eventually banned from the road, however, as a result of autonomous tech not being fully able to deal with any unexpected manoeuvre by the owner-driven auto – unless vehicle-to-vehicle communications improve and expand at a vast rate of knots.
Volvo is bringing its Drive Me autonomous driving research program to the United Kingdom next year.
As with the Swedish and Chinese schemes, Volvo plans to supply 100 London families with an XC90 SUV equipped with its very latest self-driving technology.
“Autonomous driving can make a significant contribution to road safety”, Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo said.
This week in the US, Google – which is also at the forefront of the driverless auto revolution – joined forces with Volvo and Ford, as well as taxi-hailing firms Uber and Lyft, to form a coalition to promote the benefits of self-driving cars and help push through the necessary legislation to make fully autonomous vehicles a reality.
The UK test will be formally presented at a seminar on 3 May 2016, sponsored by Volvo and insurance industry research body Thatcham Research. “Additionally, if a crash unfortunately can’t be avoided, then the impact speed will also drop as a result of the system’s performance – reducing the severity of the crash”, said Peter Shaw, chief executive of Thatcham Research. Governments globally need to put in place the legislation and infrastructure to allow AD cars onto the streets as soon as possible. He said: “The auto industry can not do it by itself. We need governmental help”, he said.
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Up to 90 per cent of all accidents are presently caused by driver error or distraction, something that should largely disappear with AD cars. Other cars can do that, we hear you say.
