Volvo, Autonomous Cars, LIDAR
LIDAR Standard Equipment in Electric XC90 SUV in 2022
Volvo's Long Standing Commitment to Life Saving Technologies
Sweden based Volvo, now owned by China's Geeley, has a long history of being the first with life saving automotive technologies. It was the first automaker to make side impact airbags standard equipment. It was also the first to make 3 point seatbelts standard. Now, it is the first to make LIDAR sensors standard, no extra cost equipment, starting with its next generation electric XC90 SUV in 2022. This is a major commitment by Volvo to automated and autonomous driving. LIDAR uses laser light pulses to provide precise images of the environment surrounding the car to avoid obstacles, pedestrians, other vehicles and potential collisions. The LIDAR is embedded into the roofline of the vehicle as seen in the above image.
Strategic Safe Driving Decision
The decision to include LIDAR as part of the standard package is part of Volvo's strategy to deploy advanced safety and autonomous driving technologies that rely on precise images of the objects and environment surrounding the vehicle with LIDAR. This decision is in stark contrast with that of Tesla which has done an autonomous driving technology turnaround. Tesla is ditching its LIDAR, radar and camera combination for a combination of 8 cameras on each self-driving car backed up by a neural network on the world's 5th most powerful AI supercomputer to turn around decision-making data in real-time for each of its millions of vehicles on the road. This is a technological war between two major global automakers on what is best for safe, autonomous driving.
Continuous Autonomous Driving Tech Improvements
California based startup Luminar Technologies is the provider of Volvo's LIDAR safety technology, which includes Luminar's Iris LIDAR and Sentinel software. The technologies are designed to address traffic situations that are likely to result in serious injuries and deaths. Luminar's LIDAR system bounces off of the car's surroundings and lets it see where it is going. It provides 360 degree surroundings intelligence to guide an autonomous vehicle real time as it self-drives, according to Luminar. The technology is being continuously developed for more and more precision. These automated technologies are expensive and until Volvo's decision have resulted in extra money being tacked onto the price of the vehicle. Volvo says it intends to continuously improve safety features in the vehicles "over the air" and is going to introduce continuous autonomous driving system improvements.
What Is Luminar Technologies?
Luminar Technologies is one of the hottest new startups in LIDAR. Founded by now 26 year old Austin Russell a few years ago, Luminar went public in 2020 and Russell become an instant billionaire & also the world's youngest billionaire entrepreneur. The LIDAR system he invented will cost Volvo about $1,000 per unit. He calls Volvo's decision "a watershed moment for the industry" and asks "why should you have an option package for life saving equipment?" His Palo Alto based company also is selling the LIDAR system to SAIC, which is China's biggest automaker. It will be installed in SAIC self-driving vehicles in China rolling out in 2022. Volvo, SAIC and Luminar Technologies are taking a big step forward in the advancement of fully autonomous and automated driving, which has the very real potential to serve as a technology chauffeur for all of us in the very near future.
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