Volvo has some big plans for its flagship XC90 with the Drive Me London project. It sets out to perform the rather brave quest of handing out an autonomous variant of the SUV to 100 London based citizens by 2018.
The goal for this project is to provide a reduced amount of car related accidents, smooth congestion flow within the city and to additionally lower pollution emissions; quite fitting for a brand that has been obsessed with safety since its been in business. The end result that Volvo is hoping to achieve for this project is for none of its inhabitants to be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo by the year 2020.
Volvo will gather data that is based on real world situations rather than test controlled conditions by making use of 100 different families . The data will be collected by a group called Thatcham research who will be providing the technical analysis and any professional test drivers should they be needed.
The Drive Me London project will be initiated by 2017 with an initial run of semi-autonomous vehicles until it eventually rolls out a full fleet of autonomous cars by 2018. The research suggests that by doing this the probability of car accidents should be reduced by up to 30% seeing that 90% of accidents are caused by driver error or distraction.
This is an interesting project that should be observed over its lifespan as it is a true display of what commuting will be like in the years to come.