Volvo's self-driving cars are making progress in first road tests

[Shawn Knight]

Volvo’s autonomous car project, known as Drive Me, is ahead of schedule. Late last year, the company announced plans to test self-driving vehicles on public roadways within a few years but Volvo has already started real-world testing of what they hope will be the world’s first large-scale fleet of autonomous vehicles.

Volvo took to a 30-mile stretch of roadway in Gothenburg, Sweden, to perform the testing. A technical specialist at Volvo said the cars are now able to handle things like lane following, speed adaption and merging into traffic without human assistance.

It’s an important step towards their goal of having the test cars drive the entire route in highly autonomous mode but of course, it’s just the start. The automaker hopes to have a fleet of 100 autonomous cars traversing Gothenburg by 2017. It’s a strategy that Volvo hopes will ultimately improve road safety and reduce traffic congestion.

Of course, Volvo isn’t the only company investing a wealth of time and money into autonomous vehicles. Audi demonstrated its own self-driving car technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year and Google has been working on its own solution for years.

In a recent post on the matter, the search giant said they’ve been working to master city street driving in their hometown of Mountain View, California. Google’s car has logged more than 700,000 autonomous miles and they’re growing more optimistic that self-driving cars will be able to fully operate without human intervention some day.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/56665-volvos-self-driving-cars-making-progress-first-road-tests.html

 

[Yashiru]

Wondering how would the car behave if it encounter an unplanned road work?

 

[wastedkill]

Or even better if it went offroad.... and google has like what 5yrs+ expertice in this area and they arent even a car company lol! Everyones late to the party and google has already gotten 5yrs+ experience on their CV now thats making a difference!

 

[RzmmDX]

Wondering how would the car behave if it encounter an unplanned road work?

I am more concerned with the disappearance of lane lines in construction areas.

 

[Greg S]

I'd be far more concerned with poor visibility and bad traction control. I got to drive an Uncle's luxury sedan that has electronic stability assist, traction control, blind spot monitoring, lane tracking assist, etc. and that still won't maintain traction at all times in the winter where I live (midwest US). Every year there are a number of accidents in my city due to snow and ice, and I doubt that self driving cars can properly account for such conditions. There is no sensor in existence that I know of that can measure snow depth and ice formations on the road while moving over 25mph. Even with snow tires on your car, you can still easily drift around corners without meaning to.

 

[Twixtea]

I guess it's fine to have auto-pilot as an option, but I'd prefer manual driving anyday.

 

[Guest]

I can't see a future for truck drivers.

 

[VitalyT]

I was thinking of a zombie firmware patch for this thing, so when the dead rise in your way you can activate the juice splatter mode. That'll be fine.

 

[Guest]

Does this car drive itself even when there are no occupants inside?

 

[RenGood08]

I think it'd be cool to have autopilot in my car. Like if its a long trip and I want a nap I can go to autopilot...then again I don't think I'd fully trust it even then. I'd have my son in the car with me. If they can perfect it...I'd be interested. But for now, I prefer to have control than my car.