Sweden’s Zenuity Splits Into Two – Volvo Cars Will Own Autonomous Software Unit

Sweden’s Zenuity, the assisted and autonomous driving software development company, will be split into two parts. One part is a new stand-alone company, focusing on the development and commercialisation of unsupervised autonomous drive software. This will be owned by Volvo Cars.

The second part will focus on the continued development and commercialisation of advanced driver assistance systems and will be integrated into Veoneer, the automotive safety equipment company.

Zenuity is currently a 50-50 joint venture between Volvo Cars and Veoneer. The new autonomous software company will operate separately from Volvo Cars.

Håkan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo Cars, says: “Volvo Cars is committed to introduce safe, unsupervised autonomous drive on highways with its next generation of cars. Allowing the new company to fully focus on this development will deliver on those ambitions.”

Dennis Nobellius, Zenuity’s CEO, adds: “The new company will develop safe and advanced autonomous drive software. We believe that in the future there will only be a limited number of global software platforms for autonomous driving. We intend to develop one of these winning platforms.”

Meanwhile, Veoneer says it expects to integrate 200 Zenuity employees into its own systems and software team.

Jan Carlson, Chairman, President & CEO, Veoneer, says: “The split will allow Veoneer to more effectively drive our business strategy. After successfully developing a strong software platform in Zenuity together with Volvo Cars, we are now taking the next steps in the development of collaborative driving and advanced driver assistance systems addressing the total light vehicle market. Veoneer will continue the development of automated driving in time for the broad commercialization of AD technologies.”

The process to split Zenuity is expected to be finalised during the third quarter of 2020.