Auto news on Youtube Dec 1 2018

How's it going everyone it's Gadgets Boy

and I'm here at Volvo Cars at the LA Auto Show

and I'm here to check out a couple of things

first, we're going to check out the future of infotainment systems with Google

and we're going to check out the future of autonomous cars, in terms of safety.

The next generation of Volvo cars will contain

a new version of the Sensus Infotainment System

powered by Google's Android operating system, which is also open source

here to talk to me more about it is Nisha from Google

- hey how's it going - you all right

so talk to me more about what this is all about

and the interface, what this empowers us to do in the future?

Right, so essentially we're going to be having these Volvo cars running Android natively

which means that out of the box users are going to have access to a head unit

that has offerings like maps, assistant, can play their music, can run the play store

and they can download whatever apps they would want to use in a car.

We're really excited to be offering these services

and seemlessly connecting the offerings with the car itself

so users are going to be able to use the assistant to check their fuel level

or navigate to their destination without having to take out their phone

and plug anything in or run any sort of app.

As we all know, safety is a very vital part of Volvo's DNA

and for self-driving vehicles safety is also very vital

so this is Luminar

Luminar uses LiDAR technology to detect cars, objects, people

up to 250 metres away making it a lot safer for us

so for self-driving vehicles it means they can see further than they already can.

I'm here with Billy from Luminar to tell me more about how this works

- Hi Billy - Hi, how's it going?

I'm good thank you, so tell me more about this LiDAR technology.

Yeah, absolutely, so we at Luminar build the world's highest fidelity LiDAR system

we build a high-fidelity 3D map of the environment

which lets you see all of the objects out in the field of view

even all the way out to 250 meters.

Amazing, so for consumers at home who are thinking about self-driving vehicles

how does this benefit them? How can they visualise this in the real word?

Yeah, absolutely, so I think the main difference is that we allow autonomous vehicles

to move from the streets of Silicon Valley top the everyday world.

So, out on the highways in places where otherwise

the rain, the fog, the snow might prohibit that from happening.

Sounds amazing, it looks like you guys are definitely thinking about safety

which is very important to me.

Absolutely, I'd say this is a shared vision of both of our companies. Safety first, absolutely.

So what you're looking at here is our three-dimensional map

this is what the self-driving car sees.

You're able to zoom around the field of view, move through objects and around them

see the cars in the booth over there

the "This is Not a Car" sculpture here in the middle of the Volvo booth

and we are right here on the screen.

And that's using the LiDAR?

This is all using the single LiDAR sensor we have in the rafters above.