Volvo wont charge extra for its upcoming electric vehicles with lidar sensors

Volvo plans on offering the lidar — and artificial intelligence-powered safety features — of its upcoming electric vehicle as standard, but the Swedish automaker plans on charging extra for its semi-autonomous systems, like the hands-free Highway Pilot.

Volvo’s fully electric successor to the XC90 SUV, to be revealed in 2022, will have two new components that have never appeared on a Volvo vehicle before: a lidar sensor produced by Luminar and an onboard “autonomous driving computer” powered by video game hardware manufacturer Nvidia.

Those two pieces of hardware will help enhance Volvo’s traditional safety features, like automatic emergency braking and blindspot detection, before the company is ready to start rolling out more...

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