Volvo will debut more than a new model when it reveals an electric SUV later this year. The new flagship will introduce three key items, starting with the vehicle itself. The other two are a new, unsupervised autonomous driving feature called Ride Pilot and a subscription service that enables the use of the self-driving technology. Also of note is that when it launches, Ride Pilot will first be available in California before being "gradually" rolled out to other markets and regions. Volvo plans to start testing Ride Pilot in California by the middle of this year because that's where, it says, "the climate, traffic conditions and regulatory framework provide a favorable environment for the introduction of autonomous driving."

Google unveiled Wednesday at CES 2022 a range of new ways to keep its Android devices connected -- and that includes cars. As more vehicles go electric and automakers evolve into software developers, expect to see more plays directed at turning cars into connected devices. Take Volvo Cars, for instance. The automaker and Google announced at CES 2022 new content and services that will be coming to future Volvo vehicles, including the ability to download and use the YouTube app via Google Play Store and the ability to communicate with the Google Home ecosystem. New Volvo car models are equipped with an Android Automotive operating system and have embedded voice-controlled Google Assistant, Google Play Store, Google Maps and other Google services into its infotainment system.

Google unveiled at CES on Wednesday a range of new ways to keep its Android devices connected, and that includes cars. As more vehicles go electric and automakers evolve into software developers, we can only expect to see more plays directed at turning cars into connected devices. One exemplar of this phenomenon is Volvo Cars, which will launch a direct integration with the Google Home ecosystem in the coming months, both Volvo and Google announced on Wednesday. The integration should allow car owners to turn their car on and off, control the temperature and get car information like battery life by issuing voice commands to Google Assistant-enabled home and mobile devices. Once customers pair their Volvo car to their Google account, they also can talk directly to Google while in their car.

Swedish automaker Volvo Cars held a Tech Day on Wednesday where company executives shared a roadmap of the company's future plans, including a switch to all-electric and software-based vehicles by 2030. A big part of Volvo's future plans include having ten of thousands of software-powered connected cars on the road in the next decade traveling millions of kilometers and continuously sharing data with the automaker. All of these software-based vehicles will be like rolling smartphones that can be updated OTA. The crowd-sourced data collected from Volvo vehicles will include continuous inputs from vehicle sensors that monitor the environment, including high-resolution lidar data used for autonomous driving. Allowing customers to share vehicle data will help Volvo continuously make software improvements to its cars, including the advanced safety systems, including autonomous driving systems.

Starting as a small local enterprise in 1927, Volvo has grown into a major player in the commercial transport and infrastructure solutions market. In May last year, Volvo announced choosing Luminar to supply lidar sensors for its next-generation XC90. The SUV will come with state-of-the-art sensors, including LiDAR technology and an autonomous driving computer powered by the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip. The suite of advanced safety features will be a standard on the successor to Volvo Cars' XC90, unveiling in 2022. The next generation of pure electric Volvo Cars will have industry leading safety technology including LiDAR and an AI-driven super computers as standard to help save lives.

Swedish luxury automobile manufacturer Volvo Cars and leading ICT provider Ericsson have taken an important step towards achieving seamless cross-border 5G connectivity in vehicles. Partners in the EU-backed 5GCroCo project, the two companies successfully tested the handover of connected cars between two national mobile 5G networks. The trial took place at the AstaZero test site in Sweden. The track has testing capabilities for different traffic environments, making it possible to assess advanced safety systems for all kinds of traffic situations. It features a 5.7 km rural road, a city area, a high-speed area and a multi-lane road.

The test, at the AstaZero test track in Sweden, is part of the EU-funded 5GCroCo project – a major initiative that is preparing for large-scale connected car trials along a 5G corridor between Metz in France, Merzig in Germany and Luxembourg. The AstaZero track tests proved that seamless service continuity on 5G networks can be guaranteed across borders – good news as cross-border handovers are essential to enabling continuous driving experiences between national networks when connected and autonomous vehicles cross from one country to another. Crossing borders by car is often part of a longer journey – and long journeys are one of the circumstances when high-quality maps are appreciated most. The Ericsson/Volvo trial also utilized 5G connectivity to ensure that maps were constantly updated with the latest real-time information to aid future autonomous driving operations and an understanding of the environment beyond the range of the vehicle and its sensors. As part of the test, Ericsson deployed a 5G mobile radio network while two Volvo cars received an HD map of the route ahead.

Volvo Cars, the Swedish auto maker owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, hopes a solution may lie in playing unobtrusive audio cues to passengers about a second before the vehicle makes a maneuver, such as a sharp turn or acceleration. Get weekly insights into the ways companies optimize data, technology and design to drive success with their customers and employees. These cues prompt passengers to adjust their posture and prepare their brains for a change in motion, decreasing the likelihood that they will feel sick, said Justyna Maculewicz, a user experience designer at Volvo who has a Ph.D. in media technology. The car maker worked with Stockholm-based audio company Pole Position Production AB and RISE, a research institute in Sweden, to compose audio cues reminiscent of car engine sounds, rather than the voice commands or industrial beeps usually associated with in-car warnings, Dr. Maculewicz said. "We are taking sounds which you learn over the years, that sound natural, and we are making them more attractive," she said.

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.

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