Uber adding 24,000 self-driving Volvos

Uber has agreed to buy 24,000 SUVs from Volvo to form a fleet of driverless vehicles, a signal that the company remains committed to autonomous cars under newly appointed chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi.

The XC90s, priced from US$ 46,900, will be delivered from 2019 to 2021 in the first commercial purchase by a ride- hailing provider, Volvo said in a statement. Uber will add its own sensors and software to permit pilotless driving.

Uber’s order steps up efforts to replace human drivers, the biggest cost in its on-demand taxi service. The autonomous fleet is small compared with the more than two million people who drive for Uber but reflects dedication to the company’s strategy of developing self-driving cars.

Last year, Uber agreed to use 100 XC90s for selfdriving tests in Pittsburgh and later struck a deal to include autonomous vehicles from Mercedes- Benz in its network at some point. But the status of the project was unclear after Waymo sued Uber this year, claiming the ride- hailing company stole trade secrets, and the U. S. Justice Department opened an inquiry into the matter.

Uber has said it didn’t use s t olen i nformation. Shortly before taking over as chief executive in September, Khosrowshahi said Uber must focus on the core business, which raised questions about the costly selfdriving program.

“This new agreement puts us on a path toward mass- produced, self- driving vehicles at scale,” Jeff Miller, Uber’s head of auto alliances, told Bloomberg News. “The more people working on the problem, we’ ll get there faster and with better, safer, more reliable systems.”

For automakers, news of Uber buying vehicles at a commercial level means potential new sales, but also looming disruption to a business model that sees cars largely sold to private owners. Uber’s US$ 70- billion valuation already puts the group almost on a par with Mercedes- Benz parent company Daimler AG.

The deal will boost sales at Volvo and should also help lower the cost of the Chinese- controlled group’s own fully autonomous cars, planned from 2021. Volvo engineers have been worki ng closely with Uber to develop a base vehicle with core driverless technology that the ride- hailing company can then augment. Volvo plans to use those cars for its own future offering.

“The automotive industry is being disrupted by technology and Volvo Cars chooses to be an active part of that disruption,” Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson said. “It’s a new market that’s emerging and we’re the first to be delivering into that segment.”

Lyft, the main ride- hailing alternative in the U. S., has said it is also building driverless cars but has mainly focused on partnerships. Among those that have agreed to test autonomous vehicles on Lyft’s platform are Delphi Automotive’s NuTonomy, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover and Waymo.

Uber, which didn’t put a time frame on when it might i ntroduce driverless rides, said its approach means anyone in the industry can “deploy its tech.” It highlighted people using hand signals and eye contact to negotiate traffic as one of the major challenges remaining for autonomous autos.

VOLVO CARS CHOOSES TO BE AN ACTIVE PART OF THAT DISRUPTION.