Volvo Vehicles and Alphabet’s Google mentioned on Wednesday the Swedish carmaker was now the lead improvement accomplice for Android automotive software program, which ought to give its consumers entry to new variations lengthy earlier than they’re out there by way of automobile trade rivals.
“We’re going to have the ability to be quick in bringing new capabilities, new options and new experiences to our prospects,” Alwin Bakkenes, Volvo’s head of worldwide software program engineering, informed Reuters. “This actually provides us an edge in constructing improbable buyer experiences.”
The 2 corporations have been working collectively for a decade, however the deeper partnership means Google engineers will drive Volvo automobiles with the newest software program to “expertise how their product behaves in an actual context a lot earlier and far sooner”, Bakkenes mentioned.
He mentioned on common the auto trade was about two Android releases behind cellphones, which “means issues you are able to do in your cell phone, in lots of circumstances you can not do within the automobile”.
Volvo autos at the moment function utilizing Android 13, however at Google’s I/O annual developer convention underway in Mountain View, California, the 2 corporations are demonstrating Volvo’s flagship EX90 electrical SUV operating on Android 15 – the newest model of Google’s cell working system – which is able to roll out in manufacturing fashions later this 12 months.
“Others may need to attend two years to get” that newest model of Android, Bakkenes mentioned.
On the I/O convention the 2 corporations additionally demonstrated Google’s Gemini synthetic intelligence mannequin operating within the EX90, which Volvo goes to roll out to automobiles with Google built-in.
Bakkenes mentioned reasonably than drivers having to go looking by their telephones for his or her vacation spot, they will ask Gemini to go looking their emails or messages for it. Or drivers can, as an example, ask Gemini to seek out recipes after which put a buying listing on their cellphone to create “a human-centric expertise”, Bakkenes mentioned.
