Volvo announces new safety tech for all-electric XC90 replacement

Volvo Car has announced the all-electric replacement for its large XC90 SUV will offer LiDAR technology and an AI-driven supercomputer as standard safety technology. 

The brand will reveal more details on its future technology roadmap at the Volvo Cars Tech Moment on June 30.

To be revealed in 2022, the all-electric Volvo XC90 SUV replacement will come standard with LiDAR technology developed by Luminar and an autonomous driving computer powered by the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip.

By combining this hardware with Volvo, Zenseact and Luminar software for the next generation of its collision avoidance technology, Volvo Cars aims to further reduce crashes and fatalities.

“Volvo Cars is and always has been a leader in safety. It will now define the next level of car safety,” Volvo Car chief executive Håkan Samuelsson says.

“By having this hardware as standard, we can continuously improve safety features over the air and introduce advanced autonomous drive systems, reinforcing our leadership in safety.”

Volvo Cars wants to reduce crashes and the reduction rate is anticipated to accelerate over time via over-the-air software updates. The new technologies are also designed to specifically address those traffic situations which result in a large portion of severe injuries and fatalities.

“Our long-term aim is to achieve zero collisions and avoid crashes altogether,” Volvo Car chief technology officer Henrik Green says. “As we improve our safety technology continuously through updates over the air, we expect collisions to become increasingly rare and hope to save more lives.”

The technology is expected to mature over time, becoming more capable and allowing the car to assist and improve the capabilities of a human driver in safety critical situations. Whereas previous generations of technology largely relied on warning the driver for potential immediate threats, this new safety technology will over time increasingly intervene as needed to prevent collisions.

Volvo Cars also sees a potential added benefit of lower insurance costs as car crashes involving Volvo cars become increasingly rare. A care package, standard on all fully electric Volvo cars, includes insurance coverage where available.

Beyond the sensor suite and AI computing performance, Volvo’s forthcoming flagship model will also come with back-up systems for key functions such as steering and braking that make it hardware ready for safe, unsupervised autonomous driving once available.

These back-up systems alongside LiDAR, computer and software will enable the Highway Pilot functionality, developed in-house together with Volvo Cars’ autonomous driving software development company Zenseact.

An autonomous driving feature for use on motorways, the optional Highway Pilot will be activated for customers when verified safe and legally allowed for individual geographic locations and conditions.

Earlier this year, Volvo Cars announced it will use NVIDIA technology to centralise computing. The core computer and autonomous drive computer both powered by NVIDIA technology allow its cars to become safer, more personal, and more sustainable over time through over the air updates, while also providing it with the computing power required for vision and LiDAR processing.