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Volvo accelerates development of unsupervised autonomous driving technology

Firm is restructuring its autonomous driving software development company.

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Volvo autonomous driving with Zenuity

Volvo has created a new autonomous driving software company as it continues to advance self-driving vehicles technology.

Zenuity, a Volvo co-owned autonomous vehicle company, has been split in two, with Volvo taking full control of a new standalone firm that will focus on the development and ‘commercialisation of unsupervised autonomous drive software’.

The second part of the company will be owned by automotive safety equipment company Veoneer, which had been a partner with Volvo on Zenuity.

The move will see Zenuity staff based in Gothenburg, Sweden and Shanghai, China, transferred to the new Volvo company.

They will focus on developing self-driving vehicle software for the next generation of Volvo’s vehicles, but will remain separate from the car maker.

Volvo XC40
(Volvo)

Håkan Samuelsson, chief executive at Volvo Cars, said: “Volvo Cars is committed to introduce safe, unsupervised autonomous drive on highways with its next generation of cars. Allowing the new company to fully focus on this development will help us deliver on those ambitions.”

Dennis Nobelius, Zenuity chief executive, said: “The new company will develop safe and advanced autonomous drive software. We believe that in the future there will only be a limited number of global software platforms for autonomous driving. We intend to develop one of these winning platforms.”

The new company will become operational later in 2020.

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