Volvo XC90 Uber SELF-DRIVING cars hit the streets of San Francisco

Uber is continuing to roll out its self-driving pilot scheme with the Volvo XC90 fitted with Uber’s autonomous technology now hitting the streets of San Francisco.

Back in August we revealed that Volvo and Uber were joining forces to work on autonomous driving (AD) technology, with Volvo supplying XC90s for Uber to fit their own AD and go to play in Pittsburgh.

That outing seems to have worked, so Uber is now off to San Francisco with the specially converted XC90s as the relationship between Volvo and Uber grows, with Volvo building the cars and flogging them to Uber who then fit their own AD hardware and software (they’re also a bit hard to miss with their roof-mounted gubbins).

Although the XC90s will be driving round San Francisco responding to Uber’s App hailing, they won’t actually be unattended as, just as in Pittsburgh, an Uber technician will be sat in the driver’s seat.

Volvo see the deal with Uber as an important part of their AD strategy, with the XC90 delivering exactly what Uber need as a modern platform for their AD technology. Although we’d have thought Volvo would have been happier to do a deal using their own AD tech.

But alongside the Uber deal, Volvo is also pushing on with its own Autonomous Driving trials in China and London as well as Gothenburg, is involved in a joint Venture with Autoliv so set up a new company to flog AD technology to OEMs and co-developing base vehicles with for AD.