Volvo Cars has widened its technology agreement with NVIDIA in a push to bring more advanced automated driving systems to its future vehicles. The Swedish manufacturer said the extended partnership builds on work between the two companies that began in 2017 and will combine Volvo's vehicle safety systems with NVIDIA's computing platforms, including the Hyperion sensor and compute architecture, Halos operating system and Alpamayo driving software.
The technology is expected to appear in a next-generation Volvo model as part of the company's previously announced product programme. Volvo has not confirmed which vehicle will receive the system first, though reports suggest the upcoming EX90 is a likely candidate.
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The company has described the rollout as gradual, with hands-off and attention-off driving functions to be introduced only once safety requirements are met. Volvo Cars CEO Håkan Samuelsson said the company would not deploy the technology where it is known to be unsafe, and that safety would decide the pace and scope of its release.
Volvo's safety record provides the context for this latest agreement. The company introduced the three-point safety belt in 1959, with engineer Nils Bohlin's design later made available to other manufacturers without royalty payments; it is credited with saving more than one million lives.
In 1972, Volvo brought a rearward-facing child seat to market, based on the principle of spreading impact forces across the body. The company followed with the world's first integrated booster cushion in 1990, the Side Impact Protection System in 1991 and side-impact airbags in 1994. In 1998, Volvo introduced the Whiplash Protection System and an inflatable curtain designed to protect occupants in side impacts and rollovers.
More recent additions include City Safety, which made autonomous emergency braking standard on the XC60 in 2008, and pedestrian detection with full auto brake in 2010. Volvo also limited the top speed of all its new cars to 180 km/h in 2020 and introduced a driver understanding system in 2023 that uses cameras to detect distraction, drowsiness and impairment.
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The NVIDIA agreement is Volvo's latest step in positioning itself as a software-defined car maker. The company has said the next generation of electric vehicles will carry more advanced computing capacity, though it has not showed pricing for the automated driving features or a firm launch date beyond the planned product roll-out.
Colin Windell for Colin-on-Cars in association with
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