Reuters: Volvo will use Luminar sensors to roll out autonomous driving capabilities in California

According to Reuters, Volvo Cars and self-driving sensor manufacturer Luminar Technologies Inc said on Wednesday that a hands-free driving system called "Ride Pilot" will be released in California first, although the two companies did not give a specific release date.

Source: Reuters

Volvo plans to deploy the technology in an upcoming all-electric SUV to be released later this year, which will allow cars to fully take over driving tasks in some limited circumstances.

Volvo plans to offer customers autonomous driving capabilities as subscription upgrades after the vehicle is on the road. Alexander Petrofski, Volvo's vice president of strategy and business ownership, said at a CES press conference that the cars will go on sale in 2023, but Volvo has yet to set a specific listing date for the Ride Pilot.

Instead, Volvo said it would not let Ride Pilot go public until it went through a "rigorous validation and testing protocol."

The two companies said they hope to begin testing the Ride Pilot on pre-production vehicles in California later this year, pending regulatory approval. But when production cars hit the road starting next year, they will come standard with simpler driver safety technology. This practice helps to collect data to validate The Ride Pilot technology before it is released.

"I envision we're going to move some of our sales to California to get vehicle density, to help collect the data," Petrofski said.

Volvo declined to say how much a subscription to upgrade to Ride Pilot costs.

"We believe that a significant portion of our future revenue will come from software sales," Petrofski said.

Luminar will provide so-called lidar sensors, a key part of the system that helps cars get a three-dimensional map of the road. But the vehicle will also rely on an array of five radar sensors, eight cameras and sixteen ultrasonic sensors, all bundled with software from Swedish company Zensact. (Proofreading/Nori)