Volvo Promises 'Death-Proof' Cars By 2020 (extremetech.com) 229
mrspoonsi sends news that Swedish automaker Volvo has issued a bold promise: by 2020, there will be no serious injuries or fatalities in new Volvo cars.
Volvo already has various smart features in its cars, but by combining them all, it becomes much harder to end up in a serious accident. Adaptive cruise control for example, is already available on many cars. It allows you to set a maximum speed, but uses radar to maintain a safe distance from the car in front of you. It can even apply the brakes if need be. This can be taken a step further with full collision avoidance. When a crash is likely, the driver will be warned. If action isn't taken, the car can begin braking to avoid, or at least minimize the impact. ... Cameras will also be used to watch for pedestrians in the vicinity of the vehicle. This is similar to the technology that is used in self-driving cars to identify potential obstacles on the road.
Challenge accepted. (Score:5, Funny)
"Hey, y'all, watch this!"
Unless the cars are entirely autonomous, AND automatically sedate the driver upon entry, I think they'll have a hard time achieving this goal.
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I think they're trying to say that there won't be any new Volvos in 2020.
will Volvo pay for the mthybusters to come back an (Score:2)
will Volvo pay for the mthybusters to come back and test it out?
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Unless the cars are entirely autonomous, AND automatically sedate the driver upon entry, I think they'll have a hard time achieving this goal.
They're only talking about new Volvo cars. The old Volvos will still be dangerous.
Obviously, that means they're planning to shut down production and liquidate all their assets by year 2020.
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No, it's easy - park in a safe place and never move.
Just like helicopter engineers know the way to make their stuff safe is to make it so heavy that it will never fly.
If you never exceed 30mph, lock the doors and windows shut anytime the car is moving, equip it with 6 sided slow-fill airbags, inside and out, and deploy upon even the threat of impact, you'll probably get the occupant death rate down below the struck pedestrian death rate (and improve the struck pedestrian death rate at the same time.)
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They also need to make sure the driver and passengers are in good physical condition, and keep them from having things like heart attacks.
Of course, if they come out with one of those blue boxy things that actually works, I want one.
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Re: Challenge accepted. (Score:2)
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With a modern car, the catalytic converter results in almost no CO emissions. So these days, it isn't the CO that kills you, but rather lack of oxygen after the CO and other exhaust components bond with all the free O2.
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Wouldn't cost more than a dollar or two to include a tunnel detector and engine shutoff override.
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Is there a governor on that setting? On some road trips I set my manual cruise control to about 85-90mph or a bit higher, depending on conditions on the road.
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Volvo AREN'T autonomous (Score:4, Interesting)
Please don't put people in it if autonomous.
The Volvo aren't autonomous in the sense that they don't handle the actual route.
Volvo mainly use their sensors (though it's camera + lidar + radar, just like on autonomous cars)
to detect possible objects that could collide with the car and break and/or sound an alarm.
Note that the driver can still override by slamming the gas pedal. (People want to be able to have the last say).
But if the driver doesn't do anything, the car will automatically slow down and stop before hitting the car/pedestrian/whatever in front.
(And also, resume driving if the car in front starts moving again. That's a very useful feature in a traffic jam. Though if the Volvo has stopped for a longer period of time, it asks a confirmation from the driver (button or gas pedal) just to be sure to have the drivers' attention.
After all, its NOT an autonomous car, and the driver is still responsible, so it would be better if the driver hasn't dozed off during the stop).
Ok Volvo, see if your car can drive this [ssqq.com]
Some of the feature of Volvo car are already useful in these situations.
Again, Volvos aren't autonomous, it's NOT their job to actually drive though this kind of hell.
BUT...
The lidar and radar will correctly whatch for anything the car might crash into.
The volvo will correctly stop before crashing into incomin vehicles or against the mountain (due to too narrow space for crossing).
The camera tracks the road and can sound an alarm if the driver risks quitting the path.
(Though unlike other brands like BMW, the Volvo won't correct the course by itself. It just sounds an alarm when detecting that the driver was swerving away of the path and either:
- hopes that the driver will wake-up correct and course
- of the driver will turn on the turn signal, because the driver was actually swerving away from the current lane on purpose - he/she wanted to change lane, but without the turn signal, the car couldn't know it and sounded an alarm anyway. Of course that last one applies to changing lane on a multi-lane highway.
Not trying to stay in path in the kind of hell like this mountain "goat-path-except-there-are-truck-on-it" from your terrifying example).
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There should be no difference with automobiles than with airplanes. A computer should know where every automobile(within its given area) is and its speed and direction of travel and last its destination. All this information would be erased once the automobile either reaches its destination or is out of its given area of concern for privacy concerns. Cell towers would be a great help here. All cell towers would have a computer to control the traffic around it. Any automobile would communicate with the
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On the same webpage you linked, if you scroll down at 60%, you see... Volvo trucks going that road.
I'm sure they did not claim this... (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, what can they do about a semi "driven" by a drunk or exhausted guy ploughing into you at speed?
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Something like this perhaps? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Volvos are nearly indestructible anyway, about as close as we have got to a General Products hull. I'm sure they will be able to build something that could survive even a large truck hitting it and keep the passenger more or less unharmed.
Well, unless you could whiplash as a serious injury, which it is.
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I don't know if you can do that in the UK? Here, I can insure my license. Any vehicle I drive is covered ....... Even if I drove your car, if I crashed it - it's fully insured. I have no idea if they offer that in the UK. ...when I rented a car in the UK.. I paid for additional insurance and they cared not one bit about my piddly US insurance. I don't actually know if that would cover a rented car in the UK or not
No, you could not. In the UK you effectively insure the car, not yourself. You might think the UK car insurance system is loony, but it actually works on a very simple principle - ie, the premium is whatever the bastards think they can get out of you. It is an extortion racket.. An American tourist/businessman in the UK?! - milk them for all they are worth!
For example, I had a fairly powerful up-market car for which I paid insurance with a discount for not having made any insurance claims (ever). F
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Different company these days. Volvo sold off its car division years ago - the Volvo name is used under license on cars.
Re:I'm sure they did not claim this... (Score:4, Insightful)
I was tempted to agree with you because I am a very attentive driver and have managed to survive by keeping an eye on everything that's happening and anticipating events but... you knew there was going to be a but... In thirty years of driving I have been in two accidents, both times my car was completely stationary. In the first one I was in stopped traffic when someone four or five cars back hit the queue of stopped cars at 60 mph. The front and back of my car were smashed but I was OK inside but things got progressively worse as you worked backwards towards the rear of the line. In the second occasion I stopped at a traffic light and the car behind me didn't, I had been stopped for a while when I was hit so it wasn't as though I braked hard or something. The other driver claimed to have not seen me, despite being in a bright red car stopped at a red traffic light in broad daylight. There were cars crossing the junction in front of me a stopped car to my left and right so nowhere to go.
Then again, you did write "it's very, very rare that an accident 100% absolutely can't be avoided", maybe twice in thirty years of driving almost every day counts as very, very rare.
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I've been sitting in stopped traffic and had the car behind me just decide to roll into the back of me even though nobody has moved for several minutes. Nobody hit him, he just lapsed in attention and let the car creep forward. I'd say that's 100% unavoidable on my part. Similarly, I've had the situation where I'm properly stopped for a red light (with traffic in front of me) and had someone plow right into the back of me. Another time, I was crossing a crowded intersection on a green light, and someone tur
Re: I'm sure they did not claim this... (Score:2)
Death Proof (Score:5, Funny)
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Best breaking-the-fourth-wall-while-grinning-at-the-camera ever.
I can see the advertising featuring Kurt Russell (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, Pam, remember when I said this car was death proof? Well, that wasn't a lie. This car is a hundred percent death proof. Only to get the benefit of it, honey, you REALLY need to be sitting in my seat.
- Stuntman Mike
Hmmm... History. (Score:2, Insightful)
Death-prroof is a strong claim. I seem to remember a little incident in 1912 about an unsinkable ship.. How are these cars going to account for something like a 747 crashing into them from above?
Re: Hmmm... History. (Score:3)
They're safe - Mythbusters is off the air now. Then again, Jamie might take that offer of an occasional special after reading this morning's news. "I could kill somebody in a Volvo."
in other news (Score:2)
Will they build RVs? (Score:3)
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Because if I'm going to live forever, I want a bathroom, kitchen and real bed.
Exactly. I live about an 8 hour drive from the ocean. If gas prices stay cheap**, I would love to get in an RV on Friday night and wake up on the beach on Saturday morning and then go to bed Sunday night and be back in my hometown for work/school Monday morning.
**Even at high gas prices, if you put 3-4 people in a vehicle, it's still considerably cheaper than flying.
Have they found a fix for physics? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure if you're ever hit head-on by a full-loaded semi at 70mph, all the safety features in the world won't help much. And the automatic swerve feature will only work if there happens to be somewhere to swerve *to*.
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My brother sold his truck and purchased something that handled much better on ice after it lost control on a long narrow bridge covered in ice that he has to travel every day to work.
Coincidentally he sold it to our other brother who recently gave it to my son for his sixteenth birthday and thinks it's awesome because it slides around in the snow.
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AFAIK, no tires are very good on ice. I've checked Consumer Reports, since my safety in winter depends partly on how my tires handle ice.
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It's not just the tires which appear to be fairly new goodyear all season, it's old, has a funky clutch, rear wheel drive, and I think it's a limited-slip differential.
All in all the design of the truck, the rear end, and the funky clutch makes it hard to handle on ice and snow, but in nice weather it's a little for 91 ford ranger with a 5 speed so it fun to drive and can tow a small boat or atv.
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I don't have a cat but it snows frequently enough that I just stock up on salt which already comes in thick plastic bags. He tossed a few bricks and bags of salt in the back up against the tailgate.
Have they found a fix for lawyers? (Score:2)
They can't even caveat them or small-print around them. It doesn't matter that the fast talker guy at the end of the commercial says "Volvo cannot prevent your death in all circumstances, see dealer for details, tax tag and title extra.
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Actually they do. Ironically enough.
It applies full braking before the driver reacts.
Because ABS is a thing, and the car brakes extremely hard. Which means it can brake on snow and ice.
So the car has lost most of its momentum before head to head.
Because of deformation, the car engine and front deforms instead of hitting the driver.
Now, the keyword here is "death proof" not "maim proof". And that opens up another ugly set of things.
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ABS will not necessarily stop a vehicle on ice. What it will do is allow you to steer into the curb or something before sliding into a busy street. (That one was a bit worrying, and if I'd been unable to steer I'd have been in real trouble.)
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The scenario I though of that they can't stop is stopped at a light. First (and only) car in line. Very heavy traffic crossing at high speed. The vehicle behind you, suffers unintended acceleration, and is heading at you at 100 mph. You are stopped. You have time to accelerate into traffic, or wait to be hit.
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I gotta call bullshit on that video... the trailer must have been empty to stop that fast. I'd like to see it with a truckload of volvos strapped into the back, and then see how well it stops.
Then there’s Google’s self-driving car (Score:2, Funny)
I'll pass on Google's cars. I don't want my car automatically pulling into the parking lots of every business that pays Google for the advertising.
Driver: "Take me to the gym"
Google car: "Arriving at Starbucks for your workout latte."
Driver: "Take me to church."
Google car: "Arriving at Joe's package store." Shit, the fucking Google car used Google to find out I'm Baptist.
How about insurance proof? (Score:2)
Or perhaps speeding ticket proof...
Swedish? (Score:3)
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Presumably A Hydrogen Fuel Cell (Score:2)
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I suspect that a hydrogen-based death-free car can also become a killer with the simple addition of a drill through the fuel tank.
18 Wheeler (Score:2)
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The car will Omega back in time 13 seconds to avoid the collision in the first place.
If Volvo could just improve their handling... (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the reasons they need all that safety equipment is that the suspension system sucks. In many other cars, if you’re going down the road and start turning the steering wheel like you’re on a slalom, the car stay stable and steer and maybe rock a bit. In a Volvo, it will suffer massive body roll and basically go out of control. So they make up for it with electronics. Electronics are good, but why not fix the underlying problems first?
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Subaru already has this in my car (Score:4, Interesting)
Proof against a Hellfire missile? (Score:4, Funny)
Leaders of ISIL and Al-Qaeda would be interested
The most recycled story of the past 7 years (Score:5, Informative)
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www.wired.com/2008/05/volvo-promises/
www.am-online.com/news/2013/2/1/volvo-predicts-crash-proof-cars-by-2020-but-uk-drivers-remain-skeptical/32308/
www.am-online.com/news/2013/2/1/volvo-predicts-crash-proof-cars-by-2020-but-uk-drivers-remain-skeptical/32308/
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Unlikely source (Score:2)
Who knew that Volvo had the secret to immortality.
Gives new meaning to "riding off into the sunset." (only to see another sunrise)
I'd like to see the EULA for those cars (Score:2)
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I am admittedly just as guilty as those writing the headlines saying that they are "death-proof", for saying that they claimed they will be "accident-proof".
I would suggest that their claim is probably even physically possible, to the extent that the vehicle has not been placed in artificially contrived circumstances (such as physically lifting the car o
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Is this anything similar to Oracle introducing their database version 10g as "unbreakable"?
What about broadside collisions? (Score:2)
Ridonkulous (Score:2, Interesting)
I suspect in the end, autonomy is going to look a little different than the predicticationaies are predicticating.
Some of this stuff is tremendous technology. Lane assist, automatic parking, anti-tailgating radar collision avoidance. All tremendous stuff. rerouting information
But a fully autonomous car? Probably not. The killer? Maybe not what you think.
I'm trying to imagine everyone planning out their route
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We are not being ridiculous, you are. Mainly because you are not thinking of other people.
Let's talk about garbage trucks - vehicles that move at slow speeds, the same route every day, with 3 people one of whom just drives, while the other two load. Today. Twenty years from now, it will be 2 people who load, while the truck drives itself.
Let's ta
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All the cars will eventually be networked and will, in fact, talk to each other and human drivers will not merely be obsolete but illegal. Eventually 100-120mph down the highway will be the standard cruising speed.
There's a word for that. A train.
The concept of taking an inherently singular activity, and turning it into something that already exists, only with less efficiency, and a metric fuckton more unreliable infrastructure, is perhaps not the ultimate in stupidity, but near enough to be indistinguishable from it.
Thelma and Louise proof? (Score:2)
Like to see that scenario.
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well.. ok, but this one is easy... car applies brakes when it senses it is running out of road.
But what about falling anvils?
Well that's one positive spin (Score:2)
Do they come with a sleazy Kurt Russel? (Score:2)
Because that would be truely creepy. And no way would I ever be getting into one of those cars.
Opposite approach to Google (Score:2, Interesting)
It is interesting to watch Volvo taking an opposite approach to Google. If you watch Google's TED talks on their autonomous cars (the one from last year) you'll hear the speaker go on and on about how there will be no way for a car using an incremental approach towards automation to offer 100% safety, and the only possible way to do it is to delete that approach from your thinking and design completely from the ground up that the car must be 100% autonomous from day one.
Personally, I think Google's approac
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That the driver will, as automation increases, stop paying attention even faster and thus have increasing numbers of accidents.
This very problem is a direct cause of quite a few aircraft crashes, so you're just not understanding it, but Google is.
there is nothing preventing the automation from simply being offline until the last moment when it can prevent the collision
We don't need autonomy to prevent collisions. We need autonomy because commuting, for the most part, is a horrendous waste of time. If I'm in the car, I'd much rather read the e-book than listen to an audiobook, or I'd work on something. I commute for 40 minutes total each day. It'd get a lot of side projects done if I could devote two uninterrupted 20 minute chunks of time each day to som
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This logic is flawed because most people own more than one car. As soon as you add any safety feature, dri
Y'all know how this works... (Score:3)
Someone makes something death-proof, they just go and make a bigger death.
Or something like that.
Study the cultural background before the ridicule! (Score:2, Interesting)
The swedish and other scandinavian people are suprisingly honest: words mean a whole lot to them, it doesn't even have to be put in writing. They feel like cold and reserved, but if they promise then they will deliver, no matter what. That is hard to grasp from a north-american viewpoint, where media is much influenced by cunning jew-think and cheeky fraud is the laudable moral code baseline.
That difference is one of the reasons the little SAAB JAS-39 Gripen fighter jet has been sold / long-term leased to s
2019 Clearance special! (Score:3)
Inside the car only? (Score:2)
Because that's easy. Volvos were already pretty much tanks on the roads. You do NOT want to get into a crash with a Volvo. Believe me that much. If you can either crash into a M1 tank or a Volvo, choose the M1. It sure is not only the softer target but also will cause less unnecessary damage on your car.
Take a look at some crash videos involving Volvos. Then ponder being in the "wrong" car. Not funny.
We don't have the technology yet (Score:2)
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And a paper/plastic bag blowing across the road is almost impossible to distinguish at speed with "sensors" and will cause your car to come to a screaming halt.
Or else it would similarly drive straight over the top of a toddler running out in front of you.
Personally, I think the car could be made safe. The driver behind you driving a "non-safe" car is what's going to kill you every time. And that will only be made worse if cars take it upon themselves to perform ever-more-drastic actions on the basis of s
Not possilbe (Score:2)
By making that claim, Volvo have shown that they have very seriously underestimated the awesome power of the American general public to continually and creatively take "stupid" to whole other levels.
Great. Just what I need! (Score:2)
My wife getting hysterical every time a car passes in front of me isn't enough. Now I'll have to listen to my car screaming at me, too.
Death-Proof Cars (Score:2)
LOL; Tesla beat them and yet failed. (Score:2)
1) a car thief that hit an old 1920's street light at over 100 MPH and split the car in half. He actually died a day later.
2) a car that went over a cliff and dropped over 300 feet.
3) another car that went over a cliff and bounced some 250 feet off the sides.
4) another one that had a head-on with a semi-truck that ran OVER the Tesla, crushing it.
5) the most recent in which an old man dr
What?! (Score:2)
So that means all new Volvo's will come equipped standard with a hover mode? In case the car hits a patch of ice and skids off a cliff?
Name? (Score:2)
How about calling it the Volvo Titanic?
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http://xkcd.com/1624/ [xkcd.com]
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In the 21st Century!
//oh wait...
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Web monkeys are equivalent to engineers? Neat!
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There you go again giving us a glimpse into your bleak, depressed, scared little life. Run along now and play with the other xenophobes - the grown-ups are talking.
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Yeah but that is not going to help when a storm blows a tree over and crushes the car and it's occupants. Even if car is stationary in the garage.
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Hope you can hold your breath long enough for the rescue guys to cut you out of the car...
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Personally, I'm looking forward to buying my 2020 Volvo Titanic, but maybe it's just me.
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Can you cite a source for your silly assertion?
Cite me, driving along Bath Road, Bristol, UK.