When you think of high-tech cars, you probably think Tesla or BMW. But theres another automaker that is quietly becoming one of the industrys most tech-centric brands: Volvo.For years, the Swedish car company has been at the forefront of introducing the latest safety tech into its vehicles.But the car companys tech savviness extends beyond just its safety systems. Volvois also investing in technology and partnerships that will make its cars more convenient, efficient, and autonomous.The company's latest move includes a partnership with Uber to develop a new base vehicle for autonomous driving.Heres a closer look at how Volvo is quietly becoming one of the leading car companies in auto tech.SEE ALSO:These 19 companies are racing to put driverless cars on the road by 2020Volvo is sneaking up on Tesla when it comes to autonomous tech.The companys Pilot Assist II, which will become available in Volvo's new vehicles next year, will do all of the steering and braking at speeds of up to 80 miles per hour.Currently, the company's semi-autonomous system only handles steering and braking for speeds up to 30 miles per hour on the highway and it must have a car in front of it to follow. So it's really only useful when you are in stop-and-go traffic.Next year, the updated system will be much closer to what Tesla offers, allowing the car to do the steering and braking on the open road up to 80 miles per hour. It will also no longer need a car to follow to work.The updated system will, however, still need clear lane markings to work properly.The system will come standard in Volvo's S90 and be available as an option in the 2017 XC90.Volvo has also partnered with Uber to develop self-driving vehicles.Volvo and Uber have teamed up to develop base vehicles that work compatibly with all of the latest autonomous driving technology.Both companies are investing $300 million in the project. Volvo will build the new base vehicles and Uber will then purchase the cars from the automaker.However, Volvo will also use the new base vehicle for the next stage of its own self-driving car strategy, which includes fully autonomous driving.The company is already testing its autonomous driving system, called Intellisafe Autopilot, internally. But it will launch a pilot program next year that enables real customers to test out the technology.Volvo will launch its pilot program, called DriveMe, in 2017 in select cities.During the pilot program, drivers will still need to supervise their vehicle while it's in autonomous mode. However, data collected during the pilot will be used to improve the system so the company can eliminate human supervision in just a few years."We will design and test for real outliers because just building and demoing a self-driving car, is not very difficult," Eric Coelingh, Volvo's senior technical leader for safety and driver support technologies, told Business Insider."But building a self-driving car and saying that an ordinary customer can get behind the steering wheel, that means that the car should be able to deal with all thinkable traffic scenarios that occur on the roadextreme conditions in terms of weather and traffic scenarios, but also technical flaws in the system."See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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