announcement

Luminar and Volvo Cars Are Ushering in the Next Generation of Vehicle Safety

Today, Volvo Cars hosted a keynote laying out a new era for safety for the brand ahead of the upcoming November 9th reveal of the new Volvo EX90 with Luminar lidar as standard. The debut will mark Luminar’s first global launch of its technology on a passenger vehicle – a major milestone for the company that is the culmination of a multi-year extensive collaboration for next-gen safety and autonomy in series production cars.

The difference lidar can make for real-life safety is remarkable.

Joachim de VerdierHead of Safe Vehicle Automation at Volvo Cars

For nearly 100 years Volvo Cars has been a leader in the industry in safety, and this legacy is reaching its next era. Volvo’s standard safety on the Volvo EX90 will be far beyond those of any Volvo before it. For the first time, a global production vehicle will seamlessly integrate a long-range, automotive grade lidar to enable one of the safest and smartest passenger cars on the road.

“The world will look back on this moment in the same way as Volvo’s introduction of the modern seat belt – catapulting the industry forward in vehicle safety.” – Austin Russell, Luminar Founder and CEO.

Pioneering new, advanced safety technology is one thing, but democratizing and standardizing it to make it available on as many passenger cars as possible is an additional challenge in its own right. Luminar began working with Volvo Cars in 2016. By 2020, a deal to integrate Luminar’s series production technology, Iris into next generation Volvos was inked. Last year, Volvo Cars moved to make Luminar’s technology standard on its upcoming Volvo EX90, to be revealed this November.

The brands are united in their mission: eliminate vehicle accidents. A key enabling technology is what Luminar delivers: the highest-performance sensing platform delivering unmatched perception performance and safety.

Read more from Volvo Cars CEO, Jim Rowan here; and from Joachim de Verdier, Volvo’s head of safe vehicle automation here.