Volvo Cars, a Swedish company that's owned by a Chinese billionaire and builds vehicles at a plant in the American South using crucial parts made in Mexico, is a poster child for how globally interconnected the auto industry became in an era of increasing free trade. When Volvo opened its factory in Charleston, S.C., in 2018 with ambitious plans to export cars to China, it was the pinnacle of a push to showcase its reemergence as a global brand with a manufacturing presence on three continents. Then the U.S.-China trade war forced Volvo to abandon its export plans. And this spring, as the coronavirus spread around the globe, the factory was plagued by a shortage of components and had to halt production three times. To make matters worse, U.S. car buyers' preferences have shifted rapidly toward sport utility vehicles and away from the sedans Volvo makes in Charleston.

Not long ago, optimists predicted that fully self-driving cars would be on the road by 2020. Today, top automotive executives are taking a more pragmatic view, as the cost and complexity come into focus and investments are diverted to more pressing needs such as electrification. Another factor slowing the move to fully autonomous cars is that consumers are wary after several high-profile accidents, including a fatal Uber crash and incidents involving Tesla's Autopilot system. A recent Deloitte study found that positive momentum on consumer trust in self-driving cars "has slowed sharply in the past year." Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson told Automotive News Europe that developing self-driving cars was "a bit more challenging technically than we originally thought."

STOCKHOLM/SAN, FRANCISCO – Uber plans to buy up to 24,000 self-driving cars from Volvo, marking the transition of the U.S. firm from an app used to summon a taxi to the owner and operator of a fleet of cars. The nonbinding framework deal could offer San Francisco-based Uber a way to overcome setbacks at its autonomous driving division in Silicon Valley's race to perfect self-driving systems. Combining Volvo's cars with Uber's self-driving system builds on their nearly three-year relationship and comes as Uber's autonomous driving unit has been hit by a lawsuit over trade secrets and the departure of top talent. Automakers, ride-hailing firms and tech start-ups have been forging loose alliances in an effort to advance self-driving technology and claim a piece of what is expected to be a multi-billion-dollar business. Geely-owned Volvo said in a statement on Monday it would provide Uber with its flagship XC90 SUVs equipped with autonomous technology as part of a nonexclusive deal from 2019 to 2021.

It is predicted that driverless cars will prevent the vast majority of crashes and dramatically reduce the cost of insuring a car, according to industry experts. Volvo's chief executive will tell a seminar on driverless cars on Tuesday that autonomous vehicles are the "single most important advance in automotive safety" in years. The Swedish carmaker's boss, Håkan Samuelsson, will cite US government research predicting that driverless cars will lead to an 80% fall in the number of car crashes by 2035. Even when an accident cannot be avoided, the impact speed will also drop due to automatic crash avoidance systems, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The result will be a huge decrease in the cost of car insurance premiums, according to separate research by insurer Swiss Re and the technology group Here. Premiums in the 14 largest car markets in the world are set to drop by $20bn (£13.5bn) by 2020 alone, according to their projections.

About one in four owners of premium cars would buy a self-driving vehicle, according to Volvo's chief executive, who has vowed to make the technology affordable. Håkan Samuelsson said Volvo had had a deluge of interest in its "Drive me" trial in London next year, when 100 drivers will test its new autonomous driving technology on motorways and major roads. The Swedish carmaker plans to start selling vehicles equipped with the technology as early as 2020. Volvo will test the technology in Gothenburg this year. It is also looking into conducting a trial in China, where congestion and road safety are major issues.

Swedish carmaker Volvo plans to run driverless car trials on public roads around London from next year. Initially the cars will be semi-autonomous, with real families travelling in them. Similar trials will run in the Swedish city Gothenburg. Drive Me London, as the trial is dubbed, will record data from these everyday journeys to help develop the technology and adapt it to real-world conditions. Details of which roads the cars will be tested on are not yet known.

Volvo is set to run self-driving versions of its family 4x4s on roads around London next year as the motor industry's trial of autonomous vehicles accelerates. While self-driving pods and shuttles were already due to operate on pavements in Greenwich and Milton Keynes this summer, the Swedish carmaker is planning to test autonomous vehicles on public roads in the capital from 2017. Volvo's UK test, called Drive Me London, will go a step further than other programmes by using real families driving autonomous cars on public roads. The manufacturer has conducted tests with the same vehicles in Gothenburg since 2014, and plans a parallel public trial in the Swedish city next year. The cars will record data from everyday users to help develop driverless cars for real-world conditions.