Volvo Cars New Innovation Portal

Collaborating with outside developers to create new in-car apps and services via its ‘Innovation Portal’, Volvo aims to achieve a never before seen range of high-quality apps for its vehicles. Volvo stated that this new portal will allow for a variety of resources and tools to be made available as open source, allowing external developers to create innovative services and in-car apps with Volvo. 

To save more lives, Volvo are encouraging a global safety movement, actively engaging with technology communities to gather ideas for development. The challenges put to the global community include traffic safety.

“Our cars are becoming increasingly smarter and more connected, and with that comes a growing demand for apps and services among our customers,” said Henrik Green, Chief Technology Officer at Volvo Cars. “By making these resources publicly available, we support developers in- and outside our company, and collaborate with the best of the best in their fields.”

The Portal’s resources are to be made available for developers, researchers, smart-home tinkerers and computer-savvy artists. By making these resources available, Volvo Cars continues a long tradition of sharing knowledge and research to contribute to safer roads for all. 

The Innovation Portal also features the Extended Vehicle API, marking the first time Volvo Cars has offered a vehicle API to the public. So with customers’ consent, the API will allow developers and other third parties to access car dashboard data, such as charge/fuel level and distance travelled, and use it to build and provide new services. Additional resources, data and data sources will be made available over time.

Within the next few months, the company will be releasing a fully functional 3D car model that will feature digital replications of the car’s physical sensors, allowing users to test sensor data for research and education purposes. Developers will also be able to use the model to build new functions and services.    

The resources available on the Innovation Portal include an emulator that recreates the Android Automotive Operating System and Google apps used in new Volvos, providing developers with an accurate in-car experience of the system. This emulator is a helpful tool to support app developers in designing, developing, testing and publishing apps directly on Google Play in the car.  

The car model and an accompanying 3D environment are suitable for use in visualisation applications, virtual reality, cinematic experiences and car configurators. These resources are also available as base tools on Unity’s developer hub, where millions of Unity users get access to tutorials on how to use the template. It’s an extremely interesting move that has the potential to impact in-car augmented reality applications.

A vast array of high-quality apps, easier and more convenient ownership, and even safer cars, are among the ambitions that Volvo Cars wants to achieve with this newly launched Innovation Portal. 
For more see https://developer.volvocars.com/