Volvo to supply Uber with 24,000 self-driving SUVs for taxi fleet
Volvo to supply Uber with 24,000 self-driving SUVs for
taxi fleet
Samantha Masunaga and Russ Mitchell November 20, 2017
9:25 AM
Volvo said Monday it will sell tens of thousands of
luxury sport-utility vehicles to Uber Technologies Inc. starting as early as
2019 that will serve as the ride-hailing company’s self-driving taxi fleet.
The Swedish carmaker will supply the advanced XC90 SUVs
over two years. The car, in its current version, which has some limited
autonomous driving features, has a starting list price of about $47,000.
The autonomous vehicle fleet will number 24,000 vehicles,
according to the Wall Street Journal. It’s unclear when the vehicles would be
put on the road. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Jeff Miller, head of auto alliances at San
Francisco-based Uber, said in a statement that the agreement puts the company
on a “path towards mass produced self-driving vehicles at scale.”
The carmaker, acquired by Chinese automaker Geely Holding
in 2012, said it also plans to use the base vehicle in the development of its
own “independent autonomous car strategy.” The automaker said it plans to
release its own fully autonomous car in 2021.
The “framework agreement,” which Volvo said was
non-exclusive, builds on an earlier agreement from 2016 in which the two
companies said they would co-develop autonomous vehicles.
Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Autotrader, said she
expected to see more of these kinds of partnerships between Silicon Valley
companies and traditional automakers.
“It’s pretty clear that autonomous vehicles and sharing
go hand in hand,” she said.
Uber has ramped up its development of self-driving
technology.
Last year, the company began offering rides in
self-driving Ford Fusions to passengers in Pittsburgh as part of a test of
Uber’s self-driving technology. The firm has also opened an advanced technologies
group focused on self-driving technology, vehicle safety and mapping.
Competitor Lyft has doubled down on its own development
of autonomous-vehicle technology. The San Francisco ride-hailing firm set up a
unit to develop autonomous vehicle technology this past summer. It has also
formed partnerships with General Motors and Waymo, the self-driving car company
created by Google.
Waymo has begun testing autonomous Chrysler Pacifica
minivans on public streets around Phoenix with no human at the wheel. The
company plans to begin ferrying ride-hailing passengers within months.
And old-line industry supplier Delphi bought
autonomous-vehicle startup Nutonomy last month for $400 million. Together,
they’ll sell autonomous hardware and software systems to manufacturers and
vehicle fleets.
“All the pieces are coming together,” said Alain
Kornhauser, an autonomous vehicle expert at Princeton University. “The
evolution can happen very fast.”
Volvo won’t be a captive supplier for Uber as its
develops its own autonomous-vehicle technology. It plans to begin importing a
new line of technology-laden Chinese cars under the Lynk & Co. brand into
Volvo U.S. showrooms by the end of 2019.
Geely, meanwhile, has technology partnerships throughout
China.
It’s unclear how far along Uber’s driverless technology
is at this point. “Maybe they’re not the leader, but they’re near the front,”
Kornhauser said.
That would be despite an exodus of engineers the company
suffered during its recent turmoil, which saw the ouster of co-founder Travis
Kalanick as chief executive. It also was hit in February with a trade secrets
lawsuit filed by Waymo in a case that goes to jury selection later this month.
Waymo accuses Uber of stealing trade secrets around its
laser-based Lidar sensing system when Uber bought a driverless trucking
technology company, Otto, last year. Otto was headed by Anthony Levandowski, a
former Waymo employee who was accused of downloading and absconding with
thousands of sensitive files when he left the company.
He was named head of self-driving at Uber, but after the
trade secrets case was filed, he was fired. He now leads a religious
organization devoted to artificial intelligence.
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