Too many articles to keep track of that say the same thing about the basics of the deal between Volvo and Autoliv. Both are located in Sweden, though Volvo is owned by the Chinese. The photo of the Volvo and Autoliv chief executives looks like the beginning of a Ingmar Bergman movie about upper class angst in Scandanavia, with beautiful white kitchens in which there is no screaming or Italian food.
I'm just going to list a few articles; there are so many more. The reports all pretty much cover the same material facts.
Wall Street Journal article
Endgadget.com post - also information about the Volvo/Uber deal
The Detroit Bureau (an automotive industry publication) - has the aforementioned photo
Question
Lingering in my mind is the question of whether Volvo is already behind the curve on a path that Nvidia, Drive.ai, and Comma.ai are well in the midst of paving? Perhaps Volvo believes it is technologically ahead; perhaps the company believes and indeed can bank on its credibility and its acumen to surge ahead; perhaps there is something of the Jackson Pollock style of painting here - throw something and see if it sticks. (Apologies to Pollock and modern art enthusiasts, but I'm not a big fan of the artist's work.)
Something new in the Swedish water?
Volvo has been a busy bee of late. In addition to the Uber deal and the Autoliv deal, Volvo is testing other driverless vehicles. It is showing off a driverless vehicle in New Zealand as well as testing a driverless truck in an underground mine. According to wikimapia, "[t]he mine consists of polymetallic ore containing zinc, copper, lead, gold and silver, as well as copper ore and gold ore. Around 80% of the ore mined at Kristineberg is extracted using the cut-and-fill method." Correctly assume that I have no idea what that means or how environmentally responsible such mining practices are.
And there's more with Uber and Volvo partnering on driverless Volvo trucks that are currently tooling around the San Francisco Bay area. These are already on the highway.
One can assume that the B2B market of trucking will be, no pun intended, a gold mine. One can assume that Daimler and Volvo will be big competitors, as past reports have shown.
Showing posts with label Sweden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sweden. Show all posts
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Volvo & Microsoft - Guys, Not Creative
The Volvo car still looks like a car. Oh boy, you can work or relax at a conventional, sleek, updated 1950s dashboard, sitting in a luxurious, 1990s Mercedes-like seat. Wow. Really? A first grader could have come up with something better. Did you consult any potential buyers? Did you think carsharing? Long-distance options for travelers? This was the outer boundary of Volvo innovation? You're kidding, right?
Oh, and Volvo states it has "reimagin[ed] the entire car experience." Not.
Like Downton Abbey for cars
Volvo's new car, to be tested on Swedish roads in 2017 - yes, that far from now - offers a rose-colored version of what we currently have, while adding safety features to make sure that drivers do not do a Tesla by turning on a self-driving feature when traveling on a road the car is unable to navigate on its own. This is PARTIALLY driverless - a necessary adjective that car manufacturers routinely exclude as these partial babies roll off the assembly line.
But the vision offered reminds me of Downton Abbey, The Remains of the Day, Upstairs, Downstairs, Gone With the Wind (an entirely different period and country, though still an apt comparison, I think) and the like - portraits of people clinging to a vanishing world. In those literary examples, some happily adopted electricity and cars, though they yearned for the trappings, customs, look, and culture of their wealthy, privileged lives to remain in place.
Like such characters in literature, film, and TV, Volvo will soon find itself in a very different world than the 20th century one in which it prospered.
Another 20th century company on board
Microsoft, which has lost its image as a company in the forefront of innovation, is Volvo's partner. Gee. The only cool part is the retro-looking virtual goggles, reminiscent of the View-Master, that lets you pick out seating colors and upholstery fabrics. The View-Master, created in 1939, was popular in the Mad Men era, which is how this whole Volvo futurama car experience appears to me. Look at the guy in the moving image above, a modern-day Don Draper.
Someone else is busy
Elon Musk is out to hire software engineers in his quest for Tesla to be fully driverless in three years.
Oh, and Volvo states it has "reimagin[ed] the entire car experience." Not.
Like Downton Abbey for cars
Volvo's new car, to be tested on Swedish roads in 2017 - yes, that far from now - offers a rose-colored version of what we currently have, while adding safety features to make sure that drivers do not do a Tesla by turning on a self-driving feature when traveling on a road the car is unable to navigate on its own. This is PARTIALLY driverless - a necessary adjective that car manufacturers routinely exclude as these partial babies roll off the assembly line.
But the vision offered reminds me of Downton Abbey, The Remains of the Day, Upstairs, Downstairs, Gone With the Wind (an entirely different period and country, though still an apt comparison, I think) and the like - portraits of people clinging to a vanishing world. In those literary examples, some happily adopted electricity and cars, though they yearned for the trappings, customs, look, and culture of their wealthy, privileged lives to remain in place.
Like such characters in literature, film, and TV, Volvo will soon find itself in a very different world than the 20th century one in which it prospered.
Another 20th century company on board
Microsoft, which has lost its image as a company in the forefront of innovation, is Volvo's partner. Gee. The only cool part is the retro-looking virtual goggles, reminiscent of the View-Master, that lets you pick out seating colors and upholstery fabrics. The View-Master, created in 1939, was popular in the Mad Men era, which is how this whole Volvo futurama car experience appears to me. Look at the guy in the moving image above, a modern-day Don Draper.
Someone else is busy
Elon Musk is out to hire software engineers in his quest for Tesla to be fully driverless in three years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)