Uber is testing self-driving Volvos on the streets of San Francisco

Uber is expanding its self-driving vehicle pilot programme to San Francisco in California. The ride-hailing technology company will be using specially converted self-driving Volvo XC90 SUVs.

Uber and Volvo signed an agreement in August 2016 to establish a jointly owned project to build base vehicles that can be used to develop fully autonomous driverless cars. The first batch of cars were tested in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The cars to be used in San Francisco have been built by Volvo and sold to Uber, after which Uber’s own self-driving hardware and software package has been added, most visibly in the roof-mounted control apparatus.

These cars will drive around the streets of San Francisco autonomously, but as part of the pilot programme they will at all times have an Uber technician on board to supervise the car’s operation.

“The promise of self-driving ride-sharing is becoming a reality,” said Mårten Levenstam, vice president product planning at Volvo Cars.

The base vehicles are manufactured by Volvo and then purchased by Uber. Volvo Cars and Uber are contributing a combined $300m to the project. Both Uber and Volvo will use the same base vehicle for the next stage of their own autonomous car strategies.

The cars to be used in San Francisco are developed on Volvo Cars’ fully modular Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), which is currently used on Volvo’s top-of-the-line XC90 SUV, as well as the S90 premium saloon and V90 premium estate.

SPA has been developed as part of Volvo Cars’ $11bn global industrial transformation programme, which started in 2010. It has been prepared from the outset for the latest autonomous drive technologies as well as next-generation electrification and connectivity developments.

The alliance with Uber forms one part of Volvo’s three-part plan to develop autonomous driving technologies.

In January 2017, Volvo will begin a project entitled Drive Me, which will see up to 100 autonomous cars will be given to members of the public to be driven on real roads around Gothenburg, Sweden. Their experiences will be used to co-develop Volvo’s autonomous cars.

Volvo has also created a joint venture with Autoliv, an automotive safety technology company, that will set up a new jointly owned company to design and manufacture separately branded autonomous driving and driver-assistance software technology packages for sale to third-party OEMs. The new company will have its headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, and an initial workforce taken from both companies of around 200, increasing to more than 600 in the medium term. The company is expected to start operations in the beginning of 2017.