Volvo CIO Atif Rafiq believes the automotive industry is undergoing its biggest changes for 100 years, and has been set a series of objectives to help Volvo thrive through the disruption.
By 2025, the company wants half of its sales to be electric vehicles, and a third of them to be autonomous cars.
The company has already achieved Level 2 autonomy, which means computers control at least two driving functions but still need the help of a human to drive the car. Volvo plans to skip the next step and move straight to Level 4 driverless cars, which are fully autonomous in controlled areas. It aims to sell its first driverless vehicles in 2021.
“This is an industry with a heritage of long car lifecycles where the product doesn’t change for four or five years,” said Rafiq. “That is absolutely the opposite of where this industry is going.”