Volvo, Autoliv Creating Self-Driving Software In Joint Venture

Volvo has long been known as a leading innovator in the automotive industry, and self-driving software is now considered the cutting edge of what cars will soon become. After proclaiming car accident deaths “a thing of the past” earlier this year according to the Inquisitr, Volvo is now moving further toward that ultimate goal in this joint venture with fellow Swedish-based company Autoliv.

Volvo and Autoliv have already teamed up before, with the collaboration yielding the company’s “Drive Me” suite, which is similar to what Tesla’s Autopilot has in testing, according to TechCrunch. With a partnership with Uber already announced back in August, according to Reuters, this new venture for Volvo adds to the already safety-leading automaker’s ideal autonomous driving experiment by involving a company like Autoliv which is also known for its safety features. Autoliv has helped develop safety systems used by all major car manufacturers, including seatbelts, airbags, steering wheels and active systems like collision avoidance.

A press conference held on the morning of September 6 revealed that Autoliv and Volvo would each initially contribute 100 employees, but ultimately the total staff is expected to reach more than 600 in the next few years. Volvo Cars CEO Håkan Samuelsson and Autoliv CEO Jan Carlson announced that the new company would begin operations in early 2017 with current Volvo Switzerland managing director Dennis Nobelius as the CEO.

“This joint-venture goes beyond the traditional supplier-OEM relationship,” said Samuelsson, according to Forbes. “It gives both Autoliv and Volvo full transparency into the technology.”

This news could be significant for the autonomous driving industry, as original manufacturers and their main suppliers are likely to be held accountable for any crashes caused by these technologies. Providing automakers with the transparency and knowledge mentioned by Samuelsson in the press conference is vital to correcting and explaining any potential issue that may arise.

It’s the transparency question that has prevented Google from realizing what it hopes to achieve with its autonomous driving machines in the future. Several OEMs have rejected the Google system because the company only wanted to provide a black box to which the manufacturers would have limited access. This will be the largest hurdle in the autonomous driving equation, and Volvo has taken a significant leap toward clearing it in this partnership with Autoliv.

“By combining our know-how and resources we will create a world leader in AD software development,” Samuelsson said of the new venture, according to Reuters. “This means we can introduce this exciting technology to our customers faster.”

The perks of this new partnership are expected to be realized as soon as 2019 to 2021, with highly autonomous level 4 and 5 systems that can operate without human intervention possible by those dates. Though Volvo is a part of this partnership and will have dibs on the software resulting from this project, the Swedish automaker will not have exclusivity over it, as it was revealed that other automakers would have access to the licensed software via Autoliv.

While autonomous driving seems to be the future, developing a fail-safe method appears impossible given the transient nature of the environment, an infinite number of possibilities when it comes to traffic and the complexity of packaging all of these safely into an artificially intelligent type of system. Though Volvo is wisely bringing a multifaceted approach to the autonomous driving space, this partnership with Autoliv may only be one small step in what is sure to be an involved process.

So don’t look for any self-driving vehicles on the streets anytime soon, as neither Volvo CEO Samuelsson nor Autoliv CEO Carlson revealed just how much money will be invested in the project. It’s likely to be a costly endeavor with growing staff over the coming years, but this development will give Volvo a leg up on other automakers when it comes to the future of transportation.

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