Volvo, Veoneer joint venture Zenuity teams up with CERN to speed up AV decision-making

Autonomous driving software specialist Zenuity will team up with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to develop autonomous vehicles that can make predictions and decisions faster to help improve safety, the supplier said in a release. This is crucial to Zenuity as its long-term goal is to help automakers create AVs that have zero collisions and cause no injuries and fatalities. The safety of AVs has been questioned following a non-fatal accident last month in Vienna, Austria, involving a driverless bus and a pedestrian, and a fatal crash in 2018 in which an Uber Technologies self-driving test vehicle killed a pedestrian in Arizona. When asked whether those accidents were a wake-up call for Zenuity, CEO Dennis Nobelius said the supplier doesn't need to be reminded about the importance of safety. "Safety is in our bones. That's how we operate," Novelius told Automotive News Europe, adding that whenever an AV is involved in an accident it is a reminder of how high the stakes are in this sector.