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Volvo Promises 'Death-Proof' Cars By 2020 (extremetech.com)
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.
"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.
After all, what can they do about a semi "driven" by a drunk or exhausted guy ploughing into you at speed?
I think I have heard that before from Stuntman Mike.
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?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt10...
Boston Whaler promises Captain Ron boats by 2021.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Because if I'm going to live forever, I want a bathroom, kitchen and real bed.
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*.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
The software that runs the car dies.....
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.
Or perhaps speeding ticket proof...
I hate to break it to you guys, but Volvo was bought by the Chinese in 2010. So, um, yeah, good luck with that.
Otherwise any 'death proof' car can become a killer with the simple addition of a piece of hose pipe...
And what happens when an 18-wheeler crushes said car?
What about collapsing bridges, ice covered roads, a malfunctioning vehicle, a semi-truck with a shifting load, a semi-truck tire blow out...
I don't like my beer getting warm before I have a chance to finish drinking it behind the wheel.
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?
One word: SecureFoam.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Marketing department came up with that one I am sure.
Since 90% of the folks in Slashdot are engineers or equivalent, we know better.
I hear "by 2020" and think "wow, nice... they push this way down the road so no one will remember the claim when 2020 finally gets here. Then I go "damn, that is only 4 years away". Then I go "damn, I'm old"...
Don't laugh whippersnapper, it will happen to you too.
The 2016 Subaru Outback calls this EyeSight, with stereo cameras near the rear view mirror. The Outback decelerates and eventually brakes to keep a fixed distance (I choose about 160 feet, but it's selectable) from any car ahead. When no car is ahead, the Outback accelerates back to the set speed; eg, 60 mph. If I stray off road lines, the car will beep and tug back some. I presume other manufacturers do similarly -- the technology has arrived, not Volvo has arrived.
Perhaps there is another way. No wheels, no engine, just a decoration in the garage?
What if I drive off a cliff?
... only if you can afford all the extras. Nothing comes as standard.
I know it is vogue to shit all over claims like this and it is probable that "death proof" is overstating things, but here is some reality: vehicles deaths have decreased by 60% over the past 30 years and 80% over the past 50 years. These numbers are based on deaths per kilometer driven.
Technology has done a lot to keep us safer and semi-autonomous cars hold a lot of promise to keep us safer. Fully autonomous could get us close to 100% safety, but I don't see that until 2050.
In any event, if we could drop the death rate another 60-80%, that would be huge -- and I think this number is realistic. Right now, we have the equivalent of a Sept 11th every month in this country yet it does not garner the same amount of horror from people who continue to use their cell phones in their cars and generally drive like idiots.
So while death proof is overstating things, I don't think it is far off.
All this means is that by 2020 volvos will be so expensive that nobody actually drives them.
Sounds like they are tempting fate, calling the vehicle "death proof". As the saying goes: "If you make something idiot proof, someone will just make a better idiot."
Leaders of ISIL and Al-Qaeda would be interested
will Volvo pay for the mthybusters to come back and test it out?
I think CNN or some news site picked the story up yet again after an interview at CES. This is ooooold news. Every year or so, Volvo makes their "no deaths or injuries" car pledge to stir up interest. Here's a 2008 story in Wired about it. Here's one in 2012. Here's one in 2013. I'm sure there's more.
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.
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
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).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Who knew that Volvo had the secret to immortality.
Gives new meaning to "riding off into the sunset." (only to see another sunrise)
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
I predict car jackers targeting Volvos. All they have to do is stand in front of the car to immobilize it.
The phrase "death-proof" is a marketing department wet dream, and a legal department nightmare (if only there was a word stronger than nightmare). Your scenario and dozens of others--which, statistically speaking, *will* happen--are why they can't make claims like these.
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." It doesn't matter that they whisper at the very bottom of their brochure "Only valid when driving in a 100% Autonomous Vehicle Zone in dry conditions at speeds lower than 12mph."
People are going to die in Volvo's cars and they will get the high holy shit sued out of them.
Nothing posted to
The first sentence, "the term 'death proof' is a marketing term and has no real meaning within this contract"...
How are they going to stop someone from getting hit in an intersection?
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 every day. It reminds me of the programmable thermostats. I tried them, but my schedule isn't the same from day to day, so I found myself just setting it on manual, and dialing in the temp I wanted when I got home.
"Let's go look at the Christmas lights honey."
"Okay, give me a half hour to plan a route" "Oh - look at the lights on that street - Let's go there." "Now I gotta re-program? Let's save that for a different evening, dear".
Almost none of the present day autonomous car utopia scenarios are very practical. The concept of you kickin' back and reading the paper while your car drives down the interstate to work at 80 mph while following the person ahead of you at three feet behind just isn't going to work (do all cars have the same stopping distance? are all cars maintained to that presumed same difference.
And in the Utopian autonomous car vision, the cars know what each other are doing, so they become a huge part of the Internet of Things. And sitting at the ready behind the wheel, always alert, always ready to take over, is completely ridonkulous. Is MADD going to start agitating for criminalization of people with slightly slower reflexes?
What I am seeing is a whole lot of different technology that will make driving safer, all allowing the driver to be safer, while not requiring that the driver pre-plan, or be so bored they fall asleep waiting for that one moment they might need to take over.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Volvo just kills others so drive like a whore in search of a free clinic.
VW has that covered
This concept was already presented in the movie Demolition Man.
I'm pretty sure that it was also presented by Ford in the earlier Tom Selleck movie, Runaway, but I'm unable to find that video readily.
Like to see that scenario.
a ship called Titanic which was unsinkable.
This is true, folks. Had to get buttfucked in court to get it, but they OFFICIALLY *DO NOT OFFER ANY DEGREE OF GUARANTEE OF QUALITY ON THE PARTS THEY USE*.
So quite how they hope to promise death proof cars when if the shoddy crap parts they admit they will accept (as long as they are *branded* Volvo parts) could cause the car to fuck up fatally is quite beyond comprehension.
To announce going out of business in 2019.
Because that would be truely creepy. And no way would I ever be getting into one of those cars.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
How does any of that help you survive when a drunk driver doing 150mph plows through a red light and into your driver's door?
Deathproof my ass. I hope someone sues volvo into bankruptcy.
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 approach is flawed because they make a flawed assumption: That the driver will, as automation increases, stop paying attention even faster and thus have increasing numbers of accidents. This is flawed because there is nothing preventing the automation from simply being offline until the last moment when it can prevent the collision. ie: The driver must remain fully engaged. And states in-between can similarly fully engage drivers by keeping one aspect of driving constantly required (Moving the wheel, maybe moving the pedals, changing gears, etc). No, not the way Mercedes does it where you can tape a bottle to the wheel and the car keeps moving it for you. No, I mean you just don't automate that part of driving *at all* until the last second before an accident, at which point the result will be the car coming to a stop at the side of the road. The kind of thing that will happen within seconds if you just let go of the wheel on a highway. The kind of inconvenience you aren't taping a water bottle to the wheel to experience.
Another argument presented was that semi-autonomous cars would have to engage the brakes and slow down the car, which would be unacceptable to drivers. I find that faulty reasoning as well because I don't see why a driver who cannot accept the computer making that decision for him will be any more accepting of it because the car is fully autonomous. I watched this play out, personally: Took a megabus. The driver was having to hit the brakes a lot due to traffic. The bus was too late for a few of the passengers to get to their destination on time for a concert they were to be singing at. This group decided to bug the hell out of the driver, clearly displeased by his having to slow down. Frankly, there's not really much difference, for a passenger, between a bus driven by a driver, and an autonomous bus. They'd be equally pissed off.
I'm happy to see that Volvo is taking the step-by-step approach and look forward to what they produce.
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
I recently bought a Subaru Legacy with Eyesight for around $24,000, and it already does all of the things mentioned in the summary. I wonder how much the Volvo will cost?
Someone makes something death-proof, they just go and make a bigger death.
Or something like that.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
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 several countries in 4 continents, despite enormous marketing and political pressure behind the american F-16 / F-35 bandwagon. The head of czech airforce stated it openly to the press they have 10 years of experience where Sweden always delivered on time and within agreed budget, while in fraternal beer-meetings other airforces often complain of being fscked financially and capability-wise by the Lockheed / Pentagon cabal on every possible occasion.
Therefore if Volvo says 2020, then it will be 2020. China now owns them, but the people sliding the sliders are still swedes. You can't realistically expect them to prevent tailpipe loopback suicides, drug cartel shoot-outs, car bombings, Chixulub asteroid impacts and Dakar Rally sand sinks. Yet, I am willing to believe they can successfully prevent all preventable civilian, gentlemen driver road deaths, among 1-70 year old (*) reasonably healthy occupants in new-make Volvo cars by 2020. Maybe they will even deliver for the promise to people ouside the Volvo vehicle, like pedestrians, cyclists, prams, etc.
(*) I feel it would be excessive to demand they protect 99 year old frail, barely alive to begin with occupants in german autobahn unlimited speed ramming vs. a shinkansen. For the little children promise, that is only valid if the kid is placed in a certified safety cradle-seat as recommended by every 1st-world car maker and legally mandated in many developed countries.
They are opening themselves for a huge lawsuit if they advertise this unless they have some pretty decent disclaimers. Yes, I know not many people die by having a tree or avalanche of rocks fall on their car while driving, but it has and does happen. It's happened in my area a few times. I don't care what sort of obstacle detection they have, the car can still only break or make swift maneuvers so fast.
I can't see any sort of tech keeping you safe if a semi truck suddenly, at the last minute, swerves into your lane either. Nobody will survive a head on collision with a semi truck going 60mph. Sure your smart car may have suddenly braked and went form 60 to 55 or maybe even 50, but you're still dead. Sorry Volvo, you may get really safe cars, but until ALL cars are self driving and you can see a falling trees or rocks before they fall, you can't be 100% death proof.
which begs the question, who the hell is going to purchase the 2019 models?
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 used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you make something foolproof, they'll just make improved fools :)
Safe at any speed is just not something we can promise with our current technology. Being crushed between a runaway cement truck and a dump truck while boxed in at a stoplight is impossible for car sensors to stop. Being blown off of an icy bridge and sinking to the bottom is another scenario the car won't be able to protect against.
I read the internet for the articles.
"Volvo hopes to reach its goal of zero deaths in its cars. This does not, of course, preclude someone from driving recklessly and getting themselves killed."
so in otherwords, this is just another advertising article. its given to us as news because there is some tech in it... FFS, volvos wont be death proof, volvos will be death proof*
Under normal driving and weather conditions, after all Volvo still hasn't figured out how to take stupid out of the human gene pool
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.
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.
I'm all for it.
First, there is NO such thing as 100% death proof. There have been 5 serious injuries/deaths in around 75,000 Model S.
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 drove through a garage and put the car in a pool, but was unable to escape and drowned.
Beyond that, tesla is by far the safest car ever made and yet, it is NOT 100% safe. It is STILL possible to die in it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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?
How about calling it the Volvo Titanic?
as long as there are heavier vehicles, there will be deaths associated with Volvos. The only deathproof vehicle is the Beast, the POTUS limosine.
The Titanic sank because someone called it "unsinkable". Those words did not stop at the walls of the room uttered therein. Man's arrogance by whatever means necessary must always meet its ruin. In this case, icebergs were a convenient tool.
Choosing to live healthily means choosing to die violently. It is how reality works. Harm no the messenger.
I'd say there was going to be a big disclaimer but as this is far enough in the future to be forgotten this is just lies.
I have studies how crashes happen and while something that swerves because you are not paying attention will reduce crashes it will not stop all of them.
Drunks are not the big cause and neither are speeders. Inattentive drivers are the major cause by far. After that are malicious drivers (those who use there vehicle as a weapon to scare an intimidate). Speeding doesn't cause crashes until you exceed what your vehicle can handle. Drunks (real .15 or higher drunks) are a rarity.
It would be simple to get inattentive drivers off the road with a points system for certain driving behaviors. after say 4 points the cop pulls the person over and arrests them. After that they are prosecuted then penalized, like a drunk driver would be. Improper turn signal use: 1 point, Commuting in the passing lane: 3 points. Driving a LTV (Light Truck Vehicle. AKA pickup, minivan, SUV, etc) 1 point. Talking on a cell phone while driving: 5 point. On entering the highway swerving to the passing lane before making it to the ambient speed of traffic: 5 point, etc
The cop records on their dash cam and they have all the evidence they need.
Start checking cell records after a crash. Calls within a few minutes to anything other than 911 mean jail time just like for a drunk.
Why do we not go inattentive drivers since they cause almost all the crashes? Lets see politicians sell a law that targets most people. Going after boogeymen is easy and safe. Telling that average voter that they are the problem..
Ha. Sounds like the unsinkable ship, the unbreakable database, etc.
Give me a 10 wheeler commercial type dump truck or a cement mixer truck. They wouldn't stand a chance.
Of course, it wouldn't take that much to defeat it. Too bad this is the last season of Mythbusters. This would be a good one for them to tear apart.
the old volvo 240s were fatality free in the US until late in the 90s, a decade after they stopped making them. yeah, a lot of it has to do with demographics.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.