Ride-sharing company Uber will buy up to 24,000 self-driving cars from multinational vehicle manufacturing firm Volvo, Reuters reported on Monday. Uber is losing $600 million (Rs 3,902 crore) every quarter, and the deal would help it overcome the losses incurred because of a lawsuit against its autonomous driving division.
Volvo said it would provide Uber its flagship XC90 SUVs cars equipped with autonomous technology from 2019 to 2021 in a non-exclusive deal. The Volvo cars have not yet been produced, though Uber’s Advanced Technologies group is building the self-driving system to be used in the vehicles.
Uber has been testing prototype autonomous Volvo cars for over a year now. “Our goal from day one was to make investments into a vehicle that could be manufactured at scale,” Jeff Miller, Uber’s head of automotive alliances, told Reuters.
Once a customer uses the Uber app to hail a cab, the cars are expected to reach the passenger’s pick up location without a driver.
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