Volvo will sell cars with built-in LiDAR beginning in 2022
It’s partnering with Luminar to make its SPA vehicles hardware-ready.
Volvo plans to equip its vehicles with built-in LiDAR beginning in 2022. The automaker is working with Luminar and says its next generation Scalable Product Architecture (SPA2) vehicles will be hardware-ready. The cars won’t be fully self-driving, but it’s a step in that direction.
Luminar’s LiDAR will be available as a rooftop add-on. Customers will be able to opt into the Highway Pilot feature, which enables fully autonomous highway driving, once the feature is verified to be safe for specific geographic locations and conditions. Highway Pilot will use a combination of cameras, radars and back-up systems for steering, braking and battery power.
The two companies have worked together in the past, so the partnership isn’t entirely surprising. In 2018, they joined forces to help LiDAR better understand pedestrian activity. They are also exploring how LiDAR might improve future advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). In a press release, Volve said it may equip all future SPA2-based cars with a LiDAR sensor.
Volvo has been pushing ahead with self-driving cars for Uber and China, as well as self-driving buses and trucks that run on NVIDIA tech. It even promised that future fleets will allow you to nap or get extra work done while you commute.
