The partnership will allow the Swedish-based carmaker, owned by China’s Geely, and ride-hailing service Uber to pool resources into initially developing the autonomous driving capabilities of its flagship XC90 SUV model. That being said, we’ve just received a new piece of info regarding driverless cars, and this time around Uber is in the middle of happenings, read on.
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The two companies plan to use a Volvo base vehicle in the project with Uber adding its own self-developed autonomous driving systems.
The Silicon Valley ride-hailing company said Thursday it is partnering with Volvo Cars to put a fleet of self-driving, plug-in hybrid SUVs into service on the roads of Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh is home to Carnegie Mellon University’s robotics department, and as many of you pointed out, it’s also home to Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center. The vehicles will be made by Volvo Cars and purchased by Uber. The investment will be shared roughly equally by the two companies.
Both companies have previously announced plans to develop self-driving cars, which will take passengers to their destinations of choice without human intervention.
With Otto, Uber gets a fast infusion of self-driving expertise, including Otto co-founder Anthony Levandowski, one of the founding fathers of autonomous technology. This project will 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.
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the new service will kick off later this month, with Uber customers in Pittsburgh being the first to try out the new service.
And in May, Tech giant Alphabet and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced a partnership that will test Google’s self-driving auto program in 2017 Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans.
An Uber self-driving vehicle that the company teased in May.
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In any case, Uber has also agreed to buy Otto, a driverless truck startup which was actually founded at the beginning of this year. Uber operates an on-demand vehicle service used all over the world.
