Regardless of how much money you have in the world, there is one thing that no one can buy: time. But with its latest development in autonomous driving Volvo Cars hopes to turn back the clock, allowing drivers to make more creative use of their time behind the wheel.
Volvo Concept 26, named to reflect the average daily commute to work of 26 minutes utilises autonomous driving technology that allows to enjoy the driving experience when they want to, or to delegate driving to the car when they want to do something else.
People first
“It’s all about people. Our research clearly shows that some people will want to use their commuting time creatively when they have full autonomous drive available, while others will want to just sit back and relax, watch online media or listen to music. Autonomous drive will make all of this possible. This is what Concept 26 has captured by re-imagining the entire car experience,” says Robin Page, Vice President of Interior Design at Volvo Cars.
When a driver wishes to delegate driving to the car the steering wheel retracts, the seat reclines and a large display emerges from the dashboard. Concept 26 is based around an all-new patented seat design that cradles the driver during the transformation phase into one of the three modes: Drive, Create or Relax.
“We have gone to great lengths to understand the challenges and opportunities that autonomous cars will bring to people in coming years, and our flexible approach to engineering and design, enabled by our new Scalable Product Architecture, means that we can readily bring this from concept to reality,” said Dr Peter Mertens, Senior Vice President Research and Development at Volvo Car Group.
“Volvo Cars is among the first to address the subject of self-driving cars and liability. We firmly believe that car makers should take full responsibility for the actions of the car when it is driving in full autonomous mode. If a manufacturer does not accept liability it clearly implies that they are not confident about their autonomous drive technology,” said Dr Peter Mertens.
