After less than two years of development Volvo has already announced plans to bring its self-driving project to the roads of Sweden’s second-largest city, Gothenburg.

Volvo’s autonomous vehicle project DriveMe aims to put 100 self-driving cars in the hands of customers by 2017, a step that is being heralded as a landmark by Dr Peter Mertens, the company’s senior vice president of research and development.

“We are entering uncharted territory in the field of autonomous driving,”...

©iStock.com/DenisTangneyJr

There is widespread discussion that driverless cars, and more broadly autonomous vehicles, will monumentally change the landscape of the automotive industry, arguably creating the biggest transformation of society’s view of the vehicle in the last 150 years.

Public acceptance of the vehicle began following the ‘Red Flag Act’ of 1865 when, by the 1890s, it became the ‘norm’ to see motor vehicles mingling, albeit uncomfortably, with the horse and...

Rewind to 2009 when I was visiting Professor Alberto Broggi and his team at the University of Parma. Using hours of footage from cameras mounted on the front of cars, they had trained computer systems to recognise kerbs, white lines, parked cars and even pedestrians.

Sitting in the back of his demonstration car, I was concerned to see my driver climb into another car and drive off. What I had not expected was for my car, the driver’s seat still empty, to follow it; steering itself and maintaining...

Driverless cars are a hot topic at the cutting edge of automotive developments. To date, much of the focus on driverless cars has been in the USA who appear to be in “pole position” in relation to the testing and development of this technology. For example, it has been reported that Google’s driverless vehicle has driven 300,000 miles in the US without any accidents.

The UK is keen to come on board to become a global leader in the development of autonomous vehicles, with plans to invest...

Automated vehicles in the UK are clear to begin testing on public roads after the Department for Transport released a report stating that the country was in a “unique position” to make these trials a success.

Most European countries have signed the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, requiring every moving vehicle to include a driver. However the UK has signed, but not ratified the convention meaning it can give the green light to

Ford has put the finishing touches on an agreement that will see it supply driverless vehicles to the UK government-backed Autodrive initiative.

During 2015 Ford will hand over two prototype cars with vehicle-to-vehicle communication features to Autodrive that will help the organisations study the contribution driverless and connected cars can make to society.

Since the turn of the year Ford has come out all guns’ blazing with its investment in upcoming technologies. Just last month it unveiled a new...

Taxi app Uber has revealed its intention to build the Uber Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburg, after announcing a strategic partnership with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

In a blog post on Uber’s site, the firm revealed that its primary focus would be in “mapping and vehicle safety and autonomy technology”. The company clearly sees driverless as the next big evolution of its product.

Uber’s plans appear to be in direct competition with Google’s own autonomous vehicle...

©iStock.com/franckreporter 

Automated vehicles are just one aspect of the driving experience Google is investigating, with news emerging that the company has won a patent where gestures can manipulate in-car controls.

The idea is to help drivers remain focused on the road because as in-car technology increases, so does the amount of controls required to use it. Even speech-to-text solutions can cause their fair share of...

Palo Alto’s Silicon Valley will be the location of a new Ford research centre, which the company hopes will drive innovation, connectivity, mobility and autonomous vehicles.

By the end of the year, Ford wants its new project to be one of the largest automotive manufacturer research centres in Silicon Valley with 125 researchers, engineers and scientists.

Ex-Apple man Dragos Maciuca, who has a background in consumer electronics, semiconductor manufacturing, aerospace and automotive, will take up the...

Driverless vehicles are the talk of the automotive industry after busy CES and Detroit motor shows, but testing them in a safe environment, that can accurately replicate the challenges of road navigation, has been a challenge until now.

US education establishment, the University of Michigan, has released more information surrounding M-City, its ambitious project to create a detailed urban test area for driverless...