Uber partners with Volvo to develop autonomous cars

Volvo Cars and Uber have joined forces to develop next-generation autonomous driving cars.

The two companies have signed an agreement to establish a joint project that will develop new base vehicles that will be able to incorporate the latest developments in AD technologies, up to and including fully autonomous driverless cars.

The base vehicles will be manufactured by Volvo Cars and then purchased from Volvo by Uber. The companies are contributing  a combined $300 million to the project.

The new base vehicle will be developed on Volvo Cars’ fully modular Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), which is currently used on Volvo Cars’ XC90 SUV, as well as the S90 premium sedan and V90 premium estate.

Starting later this month, Uber will allow customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon self-driving cars from their phones, according to Bloomberg News. The Pittsburgh fleet, which will be supervised by humans in the driver’s seat for the time being, consists of the specially modified Volvo XC90 sport-utility.