The world’s largest ridesharing service today announced that it’s teaming up with Volvo on a new $300 million joint venture aimed at developing self-driving cars. Both companies are very interested in the technology and have joined forces in pursuit of this common goal. It’s the latest of many recent moves in which we see legacy car manufacturers team up with Silicon Valley companies for autonomous cars.
Uber already announced today that it’s putting self-driving cars in commercial service. Users in Pittsburgh will soon be able to summon a car that’s will be capable of driving itself. However, until regulations change, a human will be in the driver’s seat to supervise the car at all times.
Both Uber and Volvo will be pooling their resources in this $300 million joint venture to develop autonomous capabilities for the latter’s XC90 flagship SUV. They are equally going to share the investment earmarked for this joint venture.
The partnership will see Uber buying the SUVs from Volvo and then fitting them with its self-driving system. Both companies will also conduct research and development on hardware such as sensors and software for autonomous cars.
Uber is open to work with other car manufacturers as well, recent rumors suggest that it has been talking about a partnership with Fiat as well, though nothing concrete has been announced as yet regarding this potential partnership.