Look ma, no hands! The day will yet come when you can read a book and chat away on the phone in a car without a care in the world. Volvo is one of the companies setting out to make this dream a reality – the automaker is set to play the leading role in the world’s first large-scale autonomous driving pilot project, which will see 100 self-driving Volvo cars using public roads in everyday driving conditions.
The ‘Drive Me – Self-driving cars for sustainable mobility’ pilot, as it’s called, will commence in 2014 and will involve self-driving cars using approximately 50 km of selected roads in and around the Swedish city of Gothenburg. The chosen routes will be typical commuter arteries, and will include motorway conditions and frequent queues.
The 100 Volvo cars driven by customers will be new models developed on the company’s upcoming Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), and are defined as Highly Autonomous Cars, according to the official definition by the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) in Germany.
Essentially, this means that the responsibility is handed over to the vehicle, which can handle all driving functions at the driver’s discretion. The driver is expected to be available for occasional control, but with a sufficiently comfortable transition time.
The project also includes fully automated parking, without a driver in the car. This allows the driver to walk away from the car at the parking entrance, while the vehicle finds a vacant spot and parks by itself.
The joint initiative between Volvo Car Group, the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish Transport Agency, Lindholmen Science Park and the City of Gothenburg, aims to pinpoint the societal benefits of autonomous driving. It’s also looking at positioning the country and Volvo as leaders in the development of future mobility.
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for sure max summons will get.. not a good rv
What it has to do with RV?
A car with a lot of accessories stuff, will easier drop in RV as their maintenance after 5-7 year might be too high.. Just a point anyway
then drive a bullock cart lor :)
keep your eye o the damn road!
fu yoh, cars driving on their own now. Soon we can do more work since cars can drive you from home to office and back. no more excuse for not answering the phone.
Can somebody tell me whats the point of having this useless technology?
It reduces driver error and subsequently, crashes. Too many people busying themselves with phones and food behind the wheel these days.
But most of all, not everyone is a driving enthusiast and see cars as simply an appliance to get around. They’d rather not drive if they could.
I, for one welcome the move. Too many stupid drivers around cutting in and out of traffic without signalling.
So i dont have to use my hand and foot and 0 calories la. Thats y u say “use-less”
This car can’t be applied in Malaysian road.. haha
i hope they will intro to bolehland first… since here we got too many boleh driver driving recklessly everyday, cutting queve and jumping light… at least the computer behave more than human and following the traffic rules… subsequently reducing accident rate…
volvo should use malaysian roads as their primary testing site. if it works here, it works anywhere in the world.
Some people aren’t as good as driving cars as other people, even purist desire the cars to do the driving espacially in congested roads.
Put it this way, if you have to drive throu dense traffic after spending 30 hours awake with no food in your stomach for 12 hours counting your miserable luck(yes there are people who do this), well, now you can at least take a nap in your car without stoping at petrol stands and take 10mins nap before continuing on.
True. If they don’t want to drive, why don’t they take public transport?
walking ? eww..
it’s depend. Most of the Malaysia have car. Doesn’t mean all want to drive. As no choice OR some need as AVH mention.
It’s a technology… Main purpose of car is transportation. it’s serve the purpose. When it’s new tech, ppl ask why do we need. When it become part of our life, ppl cannot live without it. that’s human nature..
soon no one needs a driving license, just make sure you can afford a self drive car will do..
Watch the video of Volvo’s automatic braking system fail at a press demo. Wonder how their auto driving feature will fare. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNi17YLnZpg
Well here’s a Volvo V40 beating a more expensive S-Class Mercedes. I’d say they’re on the right track. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_ZNG8cmnlw
the car that drives itself has been invented. its called TAXI
very funny to see a joker trying to make a joke which strangely the joke make them stupid
Haha call what u like dude. Its a world famous jokes btw. Too bad u are busy doing whatever shite. Small dude doing small stuffs no one give shite about
Get a life nutty
i think u are their potential buyer… wah,,really rich aa?
B-b-but we need to find a home for Tiddles… even if it’s slightly panicky when it drives itself XD
self-driving cars…sounds cool…so during that moment u can dreaming..do something notty..or sleeping perhaps..LOL
It is a cool tech, and I for one welcome it, I am tired of stopping for power naps. Anyways, I dont think the system will be feasable in Malaysia anytime soon. compared with city like Gothenberg, Malaysia in contrast has a planning done by a Chimpanzee high on Marijuana, the roads appears and dissappear out of fancy and signboard to tell you which road you have missed. And than we have the drivers, some take the road with such poor situational awareness to the point they could completely fail to notice a Boeing 747 in their inches behind their blind spot. I don’t think even Volvo’s computer can compute enough variables to completely avoid a accident in a Malaysian city.
Volvo is a very safety car brand….So if you want safe..u can make volvo a choice.
I’ll get this car. Run over my boss and say it wasn’t me, the car malfunctioned.
Will be more believable if it is a Proton.
So if got accidents or saman volvo bear the cost? I mean u can drive properly but there are lots of idiots who just suddenly cut into your lane and expect ppl to jam brake.
its good to hv safety features…never too much of it.
BUT if it’s taking the FUN out of driving…then i’ll take public transport. Save my $$.
(from that pic shown, that woman could be doing a side way drifting in a Volvo R & still talking away!)
Bye bye to “wasting my energy in traffic jam” finally i can sleep in the car well back home or to office :)
Too bad it need to wait a cheaper technology with mass production…
no hands. scare. how. so danger. women. wow.
Dream car for city roads. God I hate city driving.
Definitely cannot work in Malaysia. not to mention autonomous driving still have its own risk. relying on the technology too much will blunt the ability of making instant moves by the driver, even though the system is capable of “over-written” by driver’s input. so when the driver’s input is needed during some emergency or out-of-expectation moment, he/she might not be able to make the right decision, hence might lead to a real disaster.
Give it a British voice and the red swooshing lights in the hood, than we can call it KITT!! And dont forget to add turbo boost while at it. Haha.
On a more serious not. Google has been doing this for a few years with their autonomous cars. But only in the US I believe. Read that it was used to ferry people before. Plus, its not yet perfect and has had some accidents.
Its a good idea, for sure. Just dont bring it up to enthusiasts. Its helpful when one is tired or when crawling in slow moving traffic. Or when parking. But if you can drive on your own, please do so.
Its a good technology to implement for asians as asians cant drive for nuts.
If someone can afford this car with such technology. I’m pretty sure they can afford to hire a driver too. It gives back the same result and even more boss feel.
Besides, what means driving when the car move itself? It’s no more driving feel.
That’s only in Malaysia. Not in Europe or US….
This is marvelous. Fantastic as it may seem, after so many decades of conventional driving, humanity will need a great deal of time to learn to adapt to this new technology. =D I don’t know about most people, but I don’t think I personally will be able to get over letting go of maneuvering the car. The carnal fear of a fatal collision always looms in my head despite everything. =/
Just a thought – if this technology happens to become popular and is implemented, road rules the world over might be in for some really big changes!
Wow kudos to Volvo. The most humble and genuine among all luxury cars in Malaysia. Fair price too. Lets hope they will keep looking better and better. Really eager to wait for a new S40. Hope it will look good and maintain the reasonable pricing…
Hope it can trace and avoid all the lubang as well,
Volvo keeps copying Japanese…
Honda and Toyota has already succeeded in auto pilot cars, now final stage of checking and stuff before entering production.
Volvo also copied Subaru’s eyesight technology
Go search up. Japanese are the pioneers of these technologies