Automakers love making a big splash at auto shows, usually with swirling lights, loud dance music, and a car that appears out of a smoke-filled cave. Whether it's a highly anticipated production vehicle or a concept car no one will ever get to drive,...
Volvo made it clear back in June that its Care by Volvo subscription service was going to be a big hit. Now, it's got the stats to back it up: in just four months the company has sold as many subscriptions as it originally anticipated selling in the...
It's not just Ford that's working with Baidu to develop self-driving cars for the Chinese market -- Volvo has also revealed its team-up with the tech giant. While Ford announced the partnership earlier, the Swedish luxury automaker says it's the "fir...
The Volvo S60 will be the second car the automaker will "lease" via its Care by Volvo subscription service when it lands in showrooms in the next few months. But it turns out, that half the folks that flocked to subscribe to the XC40 didn't walk into...
When you mention safety and cars, most folks bring up Volvo. For decades, safety wasn't (as the kids say) cool. But in a world with increasing amounts of cars on the road in dense urban areas teaming with motorcycles, bicyclists, pedestrians and fear...
Autonomous trucking makes sense for a whole lot of reasons. While it will reduce the jobs held by human truck-drivers, it automates a profession that’s known for being intense. A self-driving truck, unlike a human-driven truck, could operate 24×7 and even at odd hours without worrying about the human sleeping behind the wheel. The trucking company doesn’t need to worry about wages, overtime, benefits, holidays, or even unions. The process becomes much safer, much more efficient, and immensely streamlined.
Companies are already entering the Self-driving truck market, with Tesla’s Semi boasting of incredible speeds, and Einride’s T-Pod showcasing a completely driverless concept. Now that Volvo’s entering the mix, we have a concept that promises to echo the brand’s dedication to safety and reliability… and just like with Volvo’s 360c autonomous car, the Vera is a conceptual autonomous truck that absolutely eliminates the need of a driver. The Vera, in fact, doesn’t even have space for a driver. Designed to look kind of like the pushback vehicle used by airplanes, the Vera is a small yet powerful platform/palette with wheels that attaches to the base of a cargo container, transporting it from A to B using artificial intelligence and a zero-emission electric propulsion system.
Intended for short commutes, accomplishing regular and repetitive tasks, the Volvo Vera will be connected to a cloud service and a transport control center to manage its predetermined routes. This control center will keep track of various details, such as the truck’s progress, a live log of every Vera on the road, the charge of each of their batteries, their load content, service requirements, and other crucial metrics.
Silent, safe trucks on our highways? I sure could live with that, Volvo!
For a car that was built to be a room/cabin on wheels, safety takes on a completely different avatar. You can’t opt for the traditional seat-belt in a car that was literally designed to be practically a bedroom on wheels. That’s the dilemma for Volvo’s 360c, a car that was quite literally built to be “architecture that transports you”. Focusing on empathizing with the traveler, the car is built with no steering wheel, pedals, or even a traditional dashboard. Instead, the car is treated as a cabin either for work (giving you more productivity), or rest (allowing you to grab a few winks during your long commute), and with that status of being a cabin on wheels come a few concerns… namely “how do you protect a sleeping passenger during a road mishap?”
Especially a concern for Volvo, given its reputation of being a brand that always puts safety and reliability first, the car company decided that the traditional safety methods like seat-belts and SRS airbags would simply not do. So in comes Volvo’s replacement… a Safety Blanket.
The ideation started with Volvo’s engineering team first looked at different reclinable positions (with the seatbelt), much like an airplane, but it came with its share of constraints, like what if the person wanted to sleep on their side, or roll over. Besides, airplane seatbelts are made to secure you during turbulence, while a car seatbelt is made for much more grave scenarios. The Safety Blanket works much like the seat-belt, in the sense it restrains you at the moment of impact, but as safety measure, is much more complicated and nuanced. A seat-belt works great because you’re always seated in a certain way. When you sleep, you’re either sleeping supine, or on your side, or even your stomach. The blanket covers your body and consists of restraints that would tighten around your shoulders and hip areas in the event of a collision or hard braking.
“The idea is to select a personalized blanket for your needs and you wear it for comfort and coziness and it will then provide protection during a crash.” says Lotta Jakobsson, senior technical expert at Volvo. “The challenge is making sure it interacts with you, being different in sizes, sleeping differently.” The Safety Restraint Blanket currently is just a work in progress, but given how soon self-driving cars will begin occupying our roads, it won’t be long before a more detailed, tested, and validated version of this will begin being implemented. “You need to figure out how you won’t be injured by things,” Jakobsson said. “It’s definitely keeping us busy.”
Let’s think about it for a second. If the most important aspect of a car (the driver) is removed, how much should a car look and behave like a car? It wouldn’t necessarily need steering wheels, a gear, pedals, rear-view mirrors, or a traditional dashboard, so what’s the difference between a self-driving car (without any of the above) and a cabin on wheels?
The only true constant in the case of a self-driving car is the traveler, believes Volvo. Focusing on the traveler’s experience, the voice in the video asks “What if autonomous travel can eliminate the stress that lurks between A and B?”. Volvo’s 360c wants to be perceived as not a car, but as an extension of your home. A moving home, or perhaps a modern-day caravan. The car is designed to be architecture on wheels, serving as a place of relaxation, entertainment, preparation, or even business… on the go. With an interior that focuses on being empathetic towards the traveler’s journey, the 360c can be a bedroom that allows you to de-stress on long travels, or have a relaxed commute to the workplace. It can also make your work commute a whole lot more productive by offering the connectivity and space of a mobile office, giving you as much as 2-3 extra hours in the day to be your most productive self.
The philosophical focus on the traveler results in a car that may fit into the traditional design outline of an automobile, but features a few key differences. The interior was given much more focus than the exterior, turning the boxy space into a room of sorts that can be used for work, play, and sleep. Generous use of glass lets you feel aware of your surroundings, while even providing the ability to tint it, turning the interiors into a more private area for work or to catch a few winks. The car completely does away with the steering wheel too, and while relinquishing that control may worry some, Volvo hopes that its brand image of car safety and reliability should help quell those doubts. The 360c is currently just being treated as a concept, but it provides a rather insightful window into Volvo’s direction in the coming future.
Autonomous vehicles are supposed to make our daily commutes more pleasant and potentially quicker. But Volvo wants to take that idea a step further with its 360c concept vehicle. Unveiled at its Gothenburg, Sweden headquarters, the automaker envision...
Two older gentlemen walk up the stairs of the Polestar booth at Pebble Beach. "What is this?" one asks the other as they marvel at the design. An employee walks up and explains that the Polestar 1 is the automaker's first car. A hybrid that'll be the...
Automakers love making a big splash at auto shows, usually with swirling lights, loud dance music, and a car that appears out of a smoke-filled cave. Whether it's a highly anticipated production vehicle or a concept car no one will ever get to drive,...
Volvo made it clear back in June that its Care by Volvo subscription service was going to be a big hit. Now, it's got the stats to back it up: in just four months the company has sold as many subscriptions as it originally anticipated selling in the...
It's not just Ford that's working with Baidu to develop self-driving cars for the Chinese market -- Volvo has also revealed its team-up with the tech giant. While Ford announced the partnership earlier, the Swedish luxury automaker says it's the "fir...
The Volvo S60 will be the second car the automaker will "lease" via its Care by Volvo subscription service when it lands in showrooms in the next few months. But it turns out, that half the folks that flocked to subscribe to the XC40 didn't walk into...
When you mention safety and cars, most folks bring up Volvo. For decades, safety wasn't (as the kids say) cool. But in a world with increasing amounts of cars on the road in dense urban areas teaming with motorcycles, bicyclists, pedestrians and fear...
Autonomous vehicles are supposed to make our daily commutes more pleasant and potentially quicker. But Volvo wants to take that idea a step further with its 360c concept vehicle. Unveiled at its Gothenburg, Sweden headquarters, the automaker envision...
Two older gentlemen walk up the stairs of the Polestar booth at Pebble Beach. "What is this?" one asks the other as they marvel at the design. An employee walks up and explains that the Polestar 1 is the automaker's first car. A hybrid that'll be the...