Volvo Group has named a financial services executive to lead its new autonomous solutions unit.
Nils Jaeger will oversee Volvo’s efforts in autonomous and connected vehicles, including the driverless Vera port vehicle, autonomous agricultural applications in Brazil and automated mining operations in Norway.
Jaeger is president of the Europe, Middle East and Africa for Volvo Financial Services. In his new role effective Jan. 1, 2020, he will report to Volvo Group President and CEO Martin Lundstedt and be a member of the Group management team.
As president of Volvo Autonomous Solutions, Jaeger will lead acceleration, development, commercialization and sales of self-driving vehicles targeted on moving large volumes of goods and material on predefined routes in repetitive flows. Volvo also has a partnership with Nvidia to develop artificial intelligence for self-driving vehicles.
“The Volvo Autonomous Solutions team will meet a growing demand and offer the best possible solutions to customers in such segments as mining, ports and transport between logistics centers, as a complement to today’s products and services,” Lundstedt said.
Jaeger will be involved with the transfer a Level 4 fully autonomous pilot by Volvo’s UD Trucks unit in Japan. Volvo agreed Dec. 18 to sell UD Trucks to Japan’s Isuzu Motors Ltd. for $2.3 billion. Volvo and Isuzu expect to cooperate on several advanced technology projects in Japan and other areas of Asia.