Volvo to offer autonomous car to buyers in five years
Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson has said that in five years the company will offer an autonomous car to buyers. He revealed that their self-driving car will come equipped with a steering wheel and will be sold to individual buyers. However, going for the autopilot feature will add another $10,000 to the cost of the vehicle.
Samuelsson has stated that their optional autopilot feature will allow the driver to complete sit back and relax. In autopilot mode the driver won't make to provide any driving inputs. The steering wheel will give buyers the choice of using it as a conventional car whenever they feel so.
"To make a car even more premium, one of the most interesting things is a full autopilot. Not a supervised version but really the one that you can sit back and watch a movie or whatever. That will make the premium car even more premium. If you're only providing transportation from A to B, you're heading into trouble. You still need to have a car that is not just fulfilling the transportation need, but also giving our customers an emotional value," said Samuelsson at the Global Mobility Leadership Forum.
He even stated that the company has already begun making the early versions of the car. The carmaker intends to test the models on public roads in Sweden in 2017. It will then be tested on public roads in London and China in 2018.
Source: Bloomberg