Uber to develop autonomous cars in partnership with Volvo

Volvo group is partnering with Uber to collaborate on autonomous car development. The partnership will see the Swedish-based carmaker, owned by China's Geely, and ride-hailing service Uber pool resources into initially developing the autonomous driving capabilities of its flagship XC90 SUV. The investment will be roughly shared equally by the two companies.

Volvo would be selling 100 cars to Uber by the end of the year (a few have been delivered already) along with a longer-term project to work together on new vehicles that will incorporate autonomous driving tech.

#volvo #xc90s will be your next self driving uber which will be launched right on this month. Everything: https://t.co/g5P1CXHF6u

— Sithum Jayarathna (@SithumC) August 19, 2016

"The alliance marks the beginning of what both companies view as a longer term industrial partnership," said a Volvo press release. It doesn’t appear that the companies will be collaborating on the autonomous driving technology itself. Instead, Volvo will work on its own autonomous tech apart from Uber, though they will share the underlying vehicle platforms.

Uber will purchase Volvos and then install its own driverless control system for the specific needs of its ride-hailing service.

Volvo will use the same vehicle for its own autonomous driving project, which is based on a plan that still envisages having a driver in the car. The investment will go towards researching and developing both hardware, such as sensors used to detect traffic and obstacles, as well as software for the self-driving cars.