Volvo To Add In-Car Sensors To Prevent Drunk Driving (reuters.com)

Volvo is installing cameras and sensors in its cars from the early 2020s, monitoring drivers for signs of being drunk or distracted and intervening to prevent accidents. These new safety features come a couple weeks after the automaker announced it will limit the top speed to 112mph on all its new cars from 2020 to help reduce the number of accidents. Reuters reports: Head of R&D Henrik Green said cameras will be installed on all Volvo models built on its SPA2 platform for larger cars, starting from the XC90 SUV in the early part of the next decade, before being added to smaller cars built on its CMA platform. Volvo said intervention if the driver is found to be drunk, tired or distracted by checking a mobile phone - among the biggest factors in accidents - could involve limiting the car's speed, alerting the Volvo on Call assistance service, or slowing down and parking the car.

CEO Hakan Samuelsson said that while the strategies meant Volvo might lose some customers keen on high speeds, it also opened opportunities to win parents who wanted to buy the safest car to carry their children. "It would be easy to say that people can do whatever they like but we feel we have a responsibility to do this. Maybe people will see us as 'Big Brother,' but if we save some lives then it's worth it," he told journalists. Volvo also said it would introduce Care Key on cars from 2021, allowing buyers to set speed limits, and that it was talking to insurers to offer better terms for users of these safety features.

Comments

The More you add the more it fails

[rtb61]

They have to be extremely careful adding this stuff to vehicles, when it fails, for what ever reason, it denies access to the vehicle by the owner. The more tech you add, the greater the servicing cost and the more frequent failures will be and the worse the reputation of the vehicle. You can add all the silly crap in you want to, inflate service and repair costs but there will be consequences. There a numerous studies on the more tech you add the more frequent failures become and the more frequent and costly servicing becomes (simply more stuff to fail and more stuff to service and more stuff to repair).

You know where this is heading cars that refuse to move unless they get their authorised $2,500 service and that means towing costs on top, owners will be impressed (oh yeah, they are counting on the hugely inflated authorised only service costs, the more automation, the locked in your become).

Re:Keen on high speeds?

[speedlaw]

The reason German cars are German Cars is due to the Autobahn. If a car is tight at 180 kph, it will be very good at 90 kph.