Volvo to supply autonomous vehicles to Uber from 2019

Volvo has signed an agreement with ride sharing company Uber to supply autonomous drive compatible vehicles. Volvo is said to deliver thousands of vehicles with self-drive capabilities starting from 2019 to 2021.

According to Volvo, the vehicles will be developed in-house and will be based on the Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) that underpins its modern line up including the XC90, S90, V90 and the new XC60. The company has developed safety redundancies and autonomous driving technologies for the XC90. These systems have been developed in close cooperation with Uber's engineers.

Volvo plans to use the same vehicles to develop its own independent autonomous car strategy and is planning to launch its first fully autonomous car in 2021. Meanwhile, Jeff Miller, Head of Auto Alliances at Uber has said that the new agreement will allow the company to introduce self-driving vehicles on a large scale.

Earlier this year, a self-driven Volvo XC90 prototype had crashed in Arizona, USA. Following the crash, Uber had suspended all road tests of autonomous cars.