Family helps Volvo test self-driving XC90

The evolution of Volvo’s Drive Me autonomous driving experiment is about to be come a little more audacious. At Detroit, Volvo introduced the Hains, a family of four from Gothenburg, who will join Volvo’s test team in Sweden in evaluating autonomous driving.

According to Volvo, the Hains will be “the first people chosen to take part in a reallife autonomous drive research program using real cars, in real traffic.”

Kyle Denton, Volvo Canada’s public relations and events manager, said the Hains were chosen at random and will be the first customers in the world to take delivery of a fully autonomous XC90, just one of the 100 self- driving Volvos that will be on Gothenburg’s road in 2017. Volvo says the experiment is part of its unique approach that “defines technology based on the role of the driver — not the other way around.”

“We take a holistic rather than a purely technical approach to our research and development processes,” said Henrik Green, senior vice president of Volvo’s research and development efforts.

The motivation for the experiment is simple, Green said.

“We want to learn more around how people feel when they engage and disengage autonomous drive,” he said, “and what sort of things they would do in the car when it’s driving them to their destination.”

In that quest, the Hains — dad Alex, mom Paula and daughters Smilla and Flippa — have all agreed to have every moment of their driving recorded, their selfdriving Volvo having as many cameras pointed i nward toward them as outwardly viewing the road.

The Hains will pick up their self- steering Volvo sometime in the last quarter of 2017. You might have to wait a little longer, since Volvo’s current plans have autonomous cars coming to market by 2021.