Volvo Cars, plans to launch an autonomous driving experiment in which local drivers will test autonomous driving cars on public roads in everyday driving conditions in China.
Volvo is owned by a Chinese company.
Volvo expects the experiment to involve up to 100 cars and will in coming months begin negotiations with interested cities in China to see which is able to provide the necessary permissions, regulations and infrastructure to allow the experiment to go ahead.
Volvo believes the introduction of autonomous driving technology promises to reduce car accidents as well as free up congested roads, reduce pollution and allows drivers to use their time in their cars more valuably.
Volvo is committed to safety to insure that no one will be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo by the year 2020.
“Autonomous driving can make a significant contribution to road safety,” Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo will tell said in Beijing on April 7, entitled ‘Autonomous driving – could China take the lead?’. “The sooner AD cars are on the roads, the sooner lives will start being saved.”
Mr Samuelsson will welcome the positive steps China has taken to put in place to develop autonomous driving technologies, but will also encourage it to do more to try and speed up the implementation of the regulations that will oversee autonomous driving cars in future.
Independent research has revealed that autonomous driving has the potential to reduce the number of car accidents very significantly. Up to 90 per cent of all accidents are also caused by human error.
In terms of congestion, AD cars allow traffic to move more smoothly, reducing traffic jams and by extension cutting dangerous emissions and associated pollution. Lastly, reduced congestion saves drivers valuable time.
“It is natural for us to work together,” Mr Samuelsson sai. “Our starting point is that both the public and private sectors stand to benefit from new technologies and industries, so it is better to build bridges and work together than to all go in different directions.”
Meanwhile Volvo ran an XC90 on power produced from other cars on the freeway in Los Angeles, recently.