Palo Alto, CA — June 24, 2021 — Today, Luminar Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: LAZR) announced it will be standard on Volvo Cars’ forthcoming fully electric flagship vehicle, helping the automaker to save even more lives as it sets a new benchmark for automotive safety.
The fully electric successor to Volvo Cars’ XC90, to be unveiled in 2022, is now set to come with state-of-the-art lidar hardware with Luminar’s Iris and perception from its Sentinel solution, in addition to an autonomous driving computer powered by NVIDIA DRIVE Orin™ and Zenseact and Volvo software. Volvo Cars aims to reduce fatalities and accidents as a whole with this new safety package.
“This is a watershed moment for the industry, and Luminar’s most significant win towards establishing the next era of safety technology,” said Austin Russell, Luminar Founder and CEO. “Going from a select highway pilot option to Luminar powering all next generation Volvo flagship cars as standard will kick off this new safety paradigm, serving as the catalyst for what we’ve been calling Proactive Safety. Volvo thinks life saving technology shouldn’t be optional, and we couldn’t agree more.”
With the new safety package, Volvo Cars aims to reduce collisions and the reduction rate is anticipated to accelerate over time via over-the-air software updates. The new technologies are also designed to specifically address traffic situations that result in large portions of the severe injuries and fatalities that occur today.
“Volvo Cars is and always has been a leader in safety. It will now define the next level of car safety,” said Håkan Samuelsson, chief executive of Volvo Cars. “By having this hardware as standard, we can continuously improve safety features over the air and introduce advanced autonomous drive systems, reinforcing our leadership in safety.”
Beyond the sensor suite and AI computing performance, Volvo’s forthcoming flagship model will also come with back-up systems for key functions such as steering and braking that make it hardware ready for safe, unsupervised autonomous driving once available. Alongside the lidar and autonomous software, these control redundancies help enable the Highway Pilot functionality, an autonomous driving feature for use on motorways and will be activated for customers when verified safe for individual geographic locations and conditions.
Luminar’s CEO will join Volvo Cars Tech Moment, to be held on June 30, 2021 where more details will be revealed on its future technology roadmap.
About Luminar Technologies:
Luminar is an autonomous vehicle sensor and software company with the vision to make autonomy safe and ubiquitous by delivering the only lidar and associated software that meets the industry’s stringent performance, safety, and economic requirements. Luminar has rapidly gained over 50 industry partners, including 8 of the top 10 global automotive OEMs. In 2020, Luminar signed the industry’s first production deal for autonomous consumer vehicles with Volvo Cars, while also striking deals with Daimler Truck AG and Intel’s Mobileye. Luminar has also received minority investments from the world’s largest commercial vehicle manufacturer, Daimler Truck AG, and Volvo Cars, a global leader in automotive safety, to accelerate the introduction of autonomous trucks and cars at highway speed. Founded in 2012, Luminar is a 400-person team with offices in Palo Alto, Orlando, Colorado Springs, Detroit, and Munich. For more information please visit www.luminartech.com.
Courtesy of Luminar Technologies