Volvo Cars will put 100 autonomous vehicles into the hands of real people to drive on the roads around Gothenberg, Sweden, including the Hain family that the company introduced at the Detroit auto show.

The Swedish family of four will take part in a real-life autonomous driving research program called Drive Me that uses real cars in real traffic.

"No one else to our knowledge is developing autonomous drive from a human-centric standpoint," said Henrik Green, senior vice president of research and development at Volvo Car Group.

The Drive Me project is a collaborative research program consisting of several players from public, private and academic fields. The project will see up to 100 autonomous cars on the roads around Gothenburg, Sweden, the base of Volvo Cars, driven by real people, in real traffic during 2017, and the company plans to eventually expand internationally.

Volvo hopes to offer its first fully autonomous car to retail buyers by 2021.