Volvo Cars looks to make Sweden the leader in autonomous driving

The Drive Me project – a unique public pilot with ordinary drivers behind the steering wheels of 100 self-driving Volvos – has been joined by a new prominent Swedish partner: Chalmers University of Technology.

“We are very happy that Chalmers is joining our aim to pinpoint the societal benefits of autonomous driving,” says Håkan Samuelsson, president and CEO of the Volvo Car Group. “The academic perspective will be crucial to our efforts to integrate self-driving cars into real-life traffic and to position Sweden as a leader in the development of future mobility.”

Chalmers University is joining the original partners, Volvo Car Group, the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish Transport Agency, Lindholmen Science Park and the City of Gothenburg in this one-of-a-kind collaboration, which is endorsed by the Swedish Government.

As the academic partner in Drive Me, Chalmers will strengthen the project’s scientific dimension, which will now include independent research and programmes for educating new experts. “Drive Me is perfectly in tune with our aim to be an academic powerhouse in the field of automated transport solutions. We will bring knowledge and research capacity to the broad Drive Me approach, which will be crucial in ensuring the efficient integration of technological and organisational mobility solutions in the future”, says Karin Markides, president at Chalmers University of Technology.

Drive Me: a unique project
Drive Me is a large-scale autonomous driving pilot project in which 100 self-driving Volvo cars will use public roads in everyday driving conditions. The cars will be driven autonomously on approximately 50 kilometres of selected roads in and around Gothenburg in Sweden; roads which will be typical commuter arteries including motorway conditions and frequent queues.

The project was initiated in 2013. The first test vehicles have been on the road in Gothenburg since 2014 – and Volvo Cars has recently taken a major leap forward by presenting a complete system solution for self-driving cars. The public pilot is scheduled to start in 2017.