Volvo Cars has announced it has begun trials of autonomous cars on the streets of Gothenburg.

Cars must learn how to drive under supervision and then can drive unsupervised. On its website, Volvo Cars explained, “To make safe self-driving cars a reality, we are putting people at the heart of our research. Our focus is on the safety of the people that participate in the Drive Me trial. What makes our approach so unique is that we will learn from drivers’ experiences as they interact with our technology. It’s this user-centric focus that guides us in the verification of our technology, and which will help us move from supervised to unsupervised driving.”

According to Volvo Cars, “The first Drive Me families have started using cars fitted with Volvo’s driver assistance technology. They will be gradually introduced to more advanced systems for assisted driving, after receiving special training.”

Once the ‘supervised driving’ has been done there will be a transition to ‘unsupervised mode’. Volvo Cars stated, “In unsupervised autonomous mode, a vehicle performs all the driving because it is safe to rely on the technology to steer, brake and accelerate. People on board the vehicle are not expected to have control of the car.”

Ultimately in the opinion of the Swedish car maker, “Unsupervised autonomous cars will revolutionise society, boost global economies and transform the way we manage our time. As the biggest change to personal mobility since the invention of the car 130 years ago, we think there’s a lot to look forward to. At Volvo Cars we believe that our first unsupervised autonomous vehicles will be in the market by 2021. What makes our approach to autonomous driving so unique is that we focus on people – not just on technology.”
 
Subscribe to Newsletter