Uber Teams Up With Volvo to Give Driver Free Rides

Driverless cars are all the hit. The ability to get into your car and tell it that you want to go to work, only to then find it drive away without you ever pressing a pedal. Now it looks like the Volvo is going to help the ride-sharing app Uber achieve their dream of driver free rides thanks to a new partnership between the companies.

Uber plans to have a fleet of fully autonomous vehicles by 2021, with every ride merely being controlled by electronics and motors. The new partnership is worth $300 million and will see Volvo building the Uber cars of the future.

Håkan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo, stated that the company was proud of their new partnership and that “This alliance places Volvo at the heart of the current technological revolution in the automotive industry”.

The first batch of vehicles is expected to hit the streets of Pittsburgh by the end of the summer. The first batch of the fleet will be specially modified Volvo XC90 SUV’s, with Uber planning on creating kits that can be installed in any vehicle to create an instant driver free vehicle. This includes their plans to acquire Otto, a self-driving solution for trucks.

While their vehicles will still contain a driver for the near future, Uber hopes to be able to ditch the human element with the help of Volvo.