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Volvo Anticipates a £10,000 Cost Premium for Self-Driving Cars
Volvo Car Corp. expects next-generation autonomous driving technologies to add £10,000 ($14,600) or more to the cost of future vehicles.
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Volvo Car Corp. expects next-generation autonomous driving technologies to add £10,000 ($14,600) or more to the cost of future vehicles.
The price premium would vary depending on volume and level of sophistication, Eric Coelingh, Volvo’s head of autonomous driving, said at a recent industry conference in London.
Autonomous vehicles could require as many as nine cameras, nine radar sensors and a sophisticated laser-scanning lidar system. Data would be fed into several high-powered processing computers with capabilities “measured in gigabytes” rather than kilobytes, Coelingh notes.
Building in redundancies for safety critical systems also would add costs. For example, two antilock braking pumps and two electrical steering systems would be needed for self-driving cars to ensure performance is maintained if the main systems fail.
Volvo will begin pilot testing a fleet of XC90 crossover vehicles equipped with advanced driver-assist functions next year in Gothenburg, Sweden, and London. The company aims to commercialize the technology in the early 2020s.
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