Look Ma, No Hands: Volvo Reveals How Their Self-Driving Cars Will Really Work

The control interface is easy enough to use, and surprisingly straightforward. When the driver is ready to put the Volvo on autopilot, the destination is set in the car's navigation system and it illuminates both shift paddles when it's ready to take over the driving. When the driver pulls both paddles simultaneously, all he needs to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.

The car will also tell the driver the amount of time left before arriving at the destination, which should prove useful if ever the driver is pressed for time and decides to manually drive the car to get there sooner.

Animations of various traffic scenarios are also streamed real time so the driver knows what open passing opportunities the car plans on taking. As soon as the countdown timer reaches one minute, the car allows the driver that time to retake control over the car through the paddles.

If the driver can't take over the paddles, the car is programmed to come to a safe and smooth stop at the destination.

In the event that the system encounter a failure while on auto pilot, it warns the driver and gives him time to retake control over the car. If the driver should fail to do so, the system will force the car to pull over and come to a complete stop.

The concept is simple but it appears to be a critical part of the autonomous driving technology that the driver be allowed to retake control since there are still system limitations and further research and improvements need be made until cars finally become fully steering-wheel free.

Volvo's 100-car autonomous driving pilot program is scheduled to commence in Gothenburg, Sweden, in the year 2017 and we're optimistic that the car company will release more details about their IntelliSafe Auto-Pilot before then.