Volvo Cars has begun Drive Me, an advanced public autonomous driving experiment.

Its first autonomous car will be used in the Drive Me project in Gothenburg.

For the experiement, the autonomous Volvo XC90 SUV was finalised in its special manufacturing facility in Torslanda and is the first in a series of autonomous cars that will be handed over to families in Gothenburg who will drive the vehicles on public roads.

Volvo Cars senior technical leader active safety Erik Coelingh said: “This is an important milestone for the Drive Me project.

“Customers look at their cars differently than engineers, so we are looking forward to learn how they use these cars in their daily lives and what feedback they will give us.”

Currently, Volvo offers a semi-autonomous functionality called Pilot Assist (PA) in its 90 series cars. PA requires gentle steering inputs to keep the car properly aligned within lane markings up to 130km/h without the need to follow another car.

"Customers look at their cars differently than engineers, so we are looking forward to learn how they use these cars in their daily lives and what feedback they will give us."

The Drive Me cars will add hands-off and feet-off capability in special autonomous drive zones around Gothenburg, powered by what the firm terms as an 'autonomous driving brain'.

With this experiment, the Swedish maker seeks to collect information from real customers using the autonomous cars in their everyday lives, with an aim to further fine-tune its autonomous driving technologies.

Following the Drive Me pilot project in Gothenburg, the company plans to commence a similar project in London next year.

Image: Volvo's autonomous car. Photo: courtesy of Volvo Car Corporation.