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Volvo to design its own city zones for autonomous and connected tech



In the spirit of CES, Volvo says it’s teaming up with its hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden, to put together what we’ll call a city of the future. Or, at least a mini example of what that will be. It’s going to be called the Gothenburg Green City Zone, and it’s going to consist of a number of new urban zones that Volvo will be instrumental in designing.

Why is Volvo helping to design a city? Infrastructure is becoming more and more important in the introduction of new vehicle technologies. These green zones will be ideal safe havens and test beds for things like autonomous driving, connected vehicles, shared mobility solutions and electrification (i.e. charging stations).

Volvo will test things like geo-enabled vehicle limitations, wherein driving through a certain zone would force the vehicle to operate in electric-only mode and remain within speed limits. Additionally, the traffic infrastructure will be capable of linking up with active safety features in vehicles to share information between different road users in the name of safety. There’s meant to be a substantial charging network built out for EVs, and limited autonomous taxis (from Volvo’s mobility provider, M) are also intended to roam the streets.

With Volvo being a main stakeholder in the city zones from the start, it can ensure that the environment for all of its technologies is friendly and receptive to them. Volvo says the Gothenburg city zone transformations will begin in spring this year and scale up as the months and years go forward.

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