The Hain family, from Gothenburg in Sweden, are the first people chosen by Volvo Cars to take part in a real-life autonomous drive research programme using real cars, in real traffic.

The automaker believes that in the rush to deliver fully autonomous cars, many car makers are forgetting the most important ingredient: the people that will use them. Its claimed unique approach is to define the technology based on the role of the driver – not the other way around.

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"The aim of the Drive Me research project is to focus on how to enhance peoples' lives and have a positive impact on society. We take a holistic rather than a purely technical approach to our research and development processes. No one else to our knowledge is developing autonomous drive from a human-centric standpoint," said R&D chief Henrik Green.

The Drive Me project is a collaborative research programme consisting of several players from public, private and academic fields. It will see up to 100 autonomous cars on the roads around Gothenburg, driven by real people, in real traffic during 2017. The project is set to expand to other cities around the world in the near future.

"We want to learn more around how people feel when they engage and disengage autonomous drive, what the handover should be like, and what sort of things they would do in the car when it's driving them to their destination," added Green.

Volvo aims to have its first fully autonomous car on the market by 2021.

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It provided a vision of what autonomous cars could deliver with Concept 26, revealed in 2015. More recently the company has partnered with ride-sharing company Uber to develop base technology for autonomous cars and has launched a joint venture with automotive safety supplier Autoliv, called Zenuity, aimed at developing benchmark autonomous drive software and safety solutions for OEMs.