Saar: Considered as Level 4 autonomous driving, it will be able to transport “sleeping passengers”.

At the unveiling event of the all-new Volvo S60, Volvo Cars’ senior vice president, Henrik Green, confirmed a publication that the next-generation of the XC90 would be able to transport “sleeping passengers”. That, he further added, be applicable on select roadways, which have an up-to-date infrastructure to support the autonomous commutes. And Volvo will call this technology Highway Assist. That’s quite an apt name if we consider what Pilot Assist offers in current Volvo models.

We already know that that next-gen Volvo XC90 will be built at the company’s newly opened manufacturing plant in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. That’s where the new Volvo S60 has entered production as well. Green confirmed that the autonomous tech would use cloud-based information, such as map data, to drive the car without any input from the driver. It will surely make use of the various onboard sensors, such as lidar, radar and cameras but, interestingly, wouldn’t rely on the vehicle to infrastructure communication systems. Essentially, the Highway Assist system will record all the data but will refer to a lot more than what the vehicle reads from its surroundings.

Will this be available by default? Oh, no! Green said that it will be offered as a premium add-on to the Volvo XC90’s kitty and will cost “four figures”. Whether those figures will be in euros or in dollars, it will way past the minimum six figures mark on our shores. That said, none of the Indian roads will be ready enough to support the upcoming autonomous tech from those sensible Swedes.

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The new Volvo XC90, which will be compatible with Highway Assist, won’t come out until 2021. Until then, the company will get more time to hone the said autonomous tech. Speaking of which, a car driving itself has received its fair share of criticism in the recent past. Cars from companies like Tesla and Uber met with serious crashes while they were driving themselves all on their own. Uber and Volvo have been co-developing and co-testing their joint efforts in the world of autonomous driving for some time now.

Source: The Car Connection