Self driving cars are not a thing of the present, as major car manufacturers and some tech giants you wouldn’t normally associate with vehicles production (Google, we’re looking at you!) started a long time ago to build self – driving prototypes which they are constantly testing and improving. If you are interested in the matters, you probably know already that last year Nissan was approved to put its self – driving vehicles in the public streets of Japan. The company aims to bring self – driving cars to the market by 2020, but until then, the Nissan Leaf has an incredible range of autonomous features, including the ability to stop at red lights, change lanes, exist motorways, all without any involvement from the driver.

Because we mentioned Google, we can’t skip the fact that by now, the tech giant not only that invested a lot of money and efforts in their self – driving prototypes, but they also tested the vehicles for thousands of miles around its headquarters in California. Moreover, Nokia, a company still associated in the nostalgic minds with the manufacturing of cell phones just launched a fund of $100 million available for the companies willing to invest in smart-car technologies. Building better, safer, eco – friendlier, affordable and intuitive cars for the future is a technological trend that is on the rise in the last years, leading to extremely important results.

In the same trend of developing more and more autopilot – driven cars, recent news tell us that self  driving Volvo cars are the next big thing in the industry, as they will soon begin to be tested on public roads in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Drive Me project announced by Volvo last year is taking shape rapidly and now, the new vehicles have to pass the tests.

Self Driving Volvo Cars Specs

According to Erik Coelingh, a technical expert involved in Volvo’s project,

The test cars are now able to handle lane following, speed adaption, and merging traffic all by themselves

Moreover, at any given time on the road, the driver can hand over all driving functions to their Autopilot. Why are these new features so important? According to specialists involved in similar car developments (and we are talking about major players in the field, like Tesla, Ford and Nissan), self – driving cars make driving a lot safer. In the words of Google co-founder Sergey Brin who was talking about the future of self – driving cars,

These vehicles have the potential to avoid accidents. We can save lives, create jobs, and reduce congestion…I expect that self-driving cars will be far safer than human-driven cars.

Will these future – cars take away your pleasure of driving? Well, probably you won’t be able to play Fast and Furious on the streets, but at least you won’t have the misfortune of becoming a number in traffic accidents statistics.