Volvo develops the 'no death' car: Vehicles which drive themselves and are totally crashproof could be on British roads in eight years
By Ray Massey, Daily Mail, 5 December 2012.
By Ray Massey, Daily Mail, 5 December 2012.
Car giant Volvo is developing 'no death' cars that drive themselves and are impossible to crash - ready for launch in showrooms within eight years.
The computerised vehicles will be fitted with high-tech sensors and will 'refuse to be steered' into other objects.
Volvo says they will be on sale to customers by 2020, but that some of the life-saving technology will be incorporated into its vehicles even earlier - from 2014 - it says.
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The car will be fitted with dozens of sensors allowing it to monitor both pedestrians and other traffic, and
take action to avoid collisions. Volvo claims by 2020 it can eradicate accidents and deaths in its vehicles.
take action to avoid collisions. Volvo claims by 2020 it can eradicate accidents and deaths in its vehicles.
Sensors will also work at high speeds, ensuring the car is a safe distance from surrounding vehicles.
Volvo's head of government affairs Anders Eugensson said: ‘Our vision is that no one is killed or injured in a new Volvo by 2020.’
Swedish-based Volvo - now owned by China's Geely group - said the first versions of its crash-free cars would meant for driving in towns at a maximum speed of 31mph.
It is part of the race by leading car manufacturers including Volvo, Ford Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Vauxhall and even Google to build fully autonomous ‘Robo-cars’ that can drive themselves - like the one which actor Will Smith drove in the sci-fi movie ‘I, Robot.’
THE FUTURE OF DRIVING
Ford’s global chairman Bill Ford Jnr, great grandson of automotive pioneer Henry Ford, announced earlier this year that motorists will soon be able to tell their car ‘switch to auto-pilot’.
He stressed that much of the technology was already being developed, trialled and tested at Ford engineering and research centres, such as at Aachen in Germany and Dunton in Essex. Mr Ford predicts:
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The biggest hurdle is not the technology which is largely developed - but public acceptance of it and and issues of who would be liable if a crash-proof car did actually crash: the driver or the manufacturer?
Volvo’s Mr Eugensson said; ’We have tested prototypes on thousands of miles of test drives on public roads in Spain and on the company's test track in western Sweden.
‘The car of the future will be like the farmer's horse.'
'The farmer can steer the horse and carriage but if he falls asleep the horse will refuse to walk into a tree or off a cliff.’
The 85-year-old company - which has always prided itself on producing the world's safest cars and developed the three-point seat-belt - said it hoped to launch the first vehicles in 2014 at speeds of up to 31 mph - for use in heavy urban traffic - with totally accident free vehicles at higher speeds by 2020.
Moves are already underway to amend international law under the Vienna Convention on Road traffic which would remove current blocks on fully autonomous vehicles.
The convention, which underpins EU and UK law, says the driver must be in control of the vehicle at all times.
New technology means that need not be the case.
Volvo has had 50 engineers working with automotive partners such as Ricardo U.K. on the new crash-proof car technology over the last several years.
Its prototypes have run thousands of miles of test drives on public roads in Spain and on the company’s test track in western Sweden.
Marcus Rothoff, head of developing Volvo’s driver assistance technology said: 'We are convinced this is the future and we want to get there first’.
Volvo has built some of the collision sensors into its current S40, and plans to have more advanced systems
in cars by 2014.
in cars by 2014.
For sceptics who say it’s pie in the sky, industry experts and bosses point out that the same was said of satellite-navigation, air-bags, self-parking car systems, sensors which ‘see’ white lines and keep vehicles in their motorway lanes, collision avoidance and autonomous cruise control that brakes automatically the car if it comes too close to the vehicle in front - all of which are features on cars sold in showrooms today.
Mercedes-Benz’s next generation flagship S-Class which goes on sale early next year. Incorporates a self-braking system that operates at speeds of up to 124 mph on German motorways, as well as in towns.
US internet search engine Google has also been testing its own prototype of a self-driving car since 2010.
VOLVO'S ROAD TRAIN
Volvo is also working on a system to enable motorists to safely and legally read, send e-mails make phone calls or have a snooze while driving at the wheel under a new ‘commuter car ’ system it has developed.
It turns convoys of vehicles into self-driving ‘road-trains.’
The Swedish car maker’s project permits lines of up to six cars dive autonomously almost bumper to bumper while driver switches off, does some office work, reads a book or has a snooze while letting the road-train convoy take the strain.
Each car’s braking, acceleration and steering is instead all controlled electronically by a lead truck - driven by a professional driver - at the head of the line.
The truck uses radio signals to control the cars behind it.
All the vehicles are fitted with a special computerised control unit fitted to their engine management systems to tell the car when to accelerate, brake and steer without any input from the driver.
Once a vehicle is ‘locked on’ to the convoy a system of lasers and sensors helps keep the cars a safe distance from one another.
The technology has been developed for Volvo by British firm Ricardo.
Drivers can signal their intention to leave the convoy and resume control of the car by simply pressing a button on the dashboard.
Volvo has spent the last three years working on the Safe Road Trains for the Environment project known as SARTRE - in a play on the name of the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre who famously and here fittingly said: ‘Hell is other people’ and ‘Man is condemned to be free.’
Volvo has already begun testing the technology. Here, a driver drinks tea as his car automatically drives
itself, keeping a safe distance from the lorry in front.
itself, keeping a safe distance from the lorry in front.
It has been made possible thanks to £5.1million of funding from the European union.
Experts say self-drive cars are potentially safer because they take the risk of human error out of motoring.
Volvo says the car train is ideal for lengthy motorway journeys.
Not only do drivers make better use of their time, but the smoother journey cuts fuel consumption by 20 per cent.
Video: A demonstration of Volvo's "City Safety" feature
Related Post: 8 Technologies That Make Cars Smarter Than Drivers
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