In a ground-breaking move for the automotive industry, Volvo Cars plans to become the world’s first car manufacturer to offer cars without keys from 2017.
Volvo customers will be offered an application for their mobile phones to replace the physical key with a digital key, which will be Bluetooth-enabled. The new app will enable the digital key to do everything a physical key currently does, such as locking or unlocking the doors or the boot and allowing the engine to be started.
Using the app, people could potentially book and pay for a rental car anywhere in the world and have the digital car key delivered to their phone immediately. On arrival, a customer could simply locate the rental car via GPS, unlock it and drive away.
Volvo will pilot this technology in spring 2016 via its car-sharing firm Sunfleet, stationed at Gothenburg airport in Sweden. A limited number of commercially available cars will be equipped with the new digital key technology in 2017.
February 25, 2016
