Can't bump this (go on, try)

Volvo XC60
Photo: Joshua Dowling

Joshua Dowling
October 7, 2008

WE'RE going to hit for sure. In a few milliseconds, that's all my brain can register as I deliberately go past the point at which I would have braked to avoid crashing into the car in front.

Impact is imminent. My muscles tense and I brace for a loud bang but, instead, the brakes are slammed on by the car's onboard computer as it temporarily takes control and applies maximum braking pressure. The seatbelts tension. I get flung forward, but then settle back in the seat as soon as the inertia stops.

The car has scrambled to a halt in the nick of time. The bumpers are a hand span apart.

On this occasion the little blue car in front of me is inflatable. I'm relieved. It's not quite the automotive equivalent of bungee jumping, but it's close.
Welcome to City Safe, a system which uses infra-red laser beams to detect a car ahead stopped in traffic. It sounds like the stuff of the distant future, but the technology will be on Australian roads within six months.

Volvo will make the crash avoidance system standard on its new compact soft-roader, the XC60, likely to be priced from $60,000 when it arrives next March. Other Volvo models with the same technology will follow but, eventually, you'll be able to get a similar system from rival brands.

Volvo says City Safe was its idea and it developed the software and the algorithms. German supplier, Continental, provided the hardware and is working on a system with other manufacturers that can bring a car to a sudden stop from 60km/h. That's a few years away.

In the meantime City Safe is intended to prevent the most common type of crash: low-speed collisions.

According to crash data from the US and Europe that Volvo has studied, about one-third of all road crashes are rear-enders, half of which are into stopped vehicles.

The insurance industry around the world is eager to learn more about the technology and see more cars equipped with it.

Insurance companies in Britain and Australia have hinted that XC60 customers may receive a 20% discount on their premiums because of the likely reduction in crashes. However, the insurers are waiting until Volvo announces prices for commonly damaged parts before it agrees to the discount.

They are concerned Volvo may increase the price of XC60 parts to compensate for the fact they'll likely be selling fewer crash panels in future.

Matthew Avery, the head of Britain's insurance industry research centre, Thatcham, told Drive: "Most customers don't realise that car companies make a lot of their profit from spare parts, not always on the actual sale of new cars.

"Volvo has not said it is going to put parts prices up (for the XC60) but it is yet to put the cards on the table, so the insurers are sitting back until that happens."

Lars Blenwall, the project leader for the XC60, admitted there was internal debate about making City Safety standard equipment. "Our service department said we would lose money but they pretty fast realised that they will not win that war. To the best of my knowledge we have no plans to increase parts prices. We recognise the need for our running costs to be competitive, but we have not announced them yet."

Most bumper-to-bumper shunts (75%, by Volvo's reckoning) occur below 30km/h, which is why City Safe is designed to work at slow speeds.

Here's the pitch: below 15km/h, Volvo guarantees to avoid a collision, and between 15-30km/h, depending on circumstances (such as road conditions and the amount of warning the system has), a crash may still be avoided or at the very least damage will be greatly reduced. Above 30km/h, you're on your own.

Authorities in Japan are concerned the system will make drivers complacent and it is yet to approve the XC60 for sale there. Avery was in Japan this week as an independent voice to explain how the technology works.

"The motor authority there is concerned drivers may not use the brakes," he says. "But anyone who has tested the system will tell you that it intervenes so late it scares the living daylights out of you. There won't be too may people wanting to try this behind a real car."

Authorities in the US had similar concerns about driver complacency but have since approved the technology.

Blenwall says that if the Japanese authorities don't approve the technology then it will delete it from XC60s sold there. This would be ironic, as Japanese makers are known for similar crash avoidance gadgets.

In the case of the Volvo, infra-red beams near the top of the windscreen constantly scan for objects within about eight metres in front of the car. As I discovered, the brakes can be applied quick as a blink, leaving less than half a metre spare between your car and the car in front once the vehicle has stopped.

I got up to 27km/h without hitting the inflatable car, but when I tried a run at 30km/h I nudged it.

The sensors that scan the road are hidden in a cluster of other sensors behind the rear view mirror. Cleverly, they are positioned in the swept area of the windscreen so they always stay clean.

The system is good but it isn't flawless. Given that it relies on the reflections from the paintwork and windows of the car in front, it may not detect a dirty car or one covered in undercoat. So be careful driving near old bangers, Mini Mokes or dirty trucks.

And if you're slightly offset to the vehicle in front, the system's effectiveness can be diminished. Ideally, at least half the car width must line up with the back of the stopped car in front.

The technology also doesn't yet detect pedestrians, but the boffins are already working on a solution and company insiders say it will be available within three years. Volvo had the ability to make the system intervene at higher speeds but it deliberately kept the limits low because it didn't want to take too much control away from the driver. As soon as you turn the wheel to avoid the collision, for example, the automatic braking is released in an instant and the driver regains full control.

One of the developers of Volvo's City Safe system, Mattias Bengtsson admits the company was concerned some customers may become complacent and rely on the technology to avoid collisions rather than stay alert in stop-start traffic.

"This could be a problem," he says, "which is why we made the intervention so late. We designed the system to kick in after it is human nature to hit the brake pedal."

Indeed, when fine-tuning the calibrations of the technology, Volvo had to retrain its development drivers to not hit the brakes too soon.

"It goes against every instinct in your body," he says. "So we hope all our customers will stay alert and not rely on this as a safety net. It really is only for use when you are past the point of no return."

Having figured out how to protect vehicle occupants after a crash, Volvo and most other car makers are working full speed ahead on how to prevent them in the first place.

In a Martin Luther King-like statement, Volvo says it has "a dream" to have crashless cars and no fatalities, but this will depend on government intervention by making compulsory technology that enables cars to "talk" to each other. That world is eons away, and may never come.

In the meantime, Volvo is loading its cars with lasers, radars and cameras to avoid bumping into others.

Some might unkindly say Volvo drivers need all the help they can get. But the Swedes take this stuff very seriously.

Volvo now has the ability to keep an eye on what's in the lane next to you (blindspot warning system), and to detect the signs of fatigue by tracking if the car is wandering from its lane.

A rectangular beacon mounted in the grille alongside the Volvo badge is not related to the City Safety technology; that's the radar cruise control system which enables the car to maintain a safe gap at cruising speeds. This is a relatively common accessory on luxury cars.

But Volvo has used the same radar beacon to create another handy feature: distance alert.

A light on the dash, which reflects into the windscreen in front of the driver, glows when the car thinks you're travelling too close to the vehicle in front. Every car should have one. It's genius. The only real pity is that most of this stuff isn't standard. Thanks to the constant anti-speed message from road safety authorities in Australia, you could be forgiven for thinking speed was the single biggest menace on our roads. But Volvo has studied the causes of thousands of accidents and found that inattention and distractions are the most common causes of crashes.

Safety experts walk a fine line between helping drivers and turning them into zombies behind the wheel. For example, Volvo says it has the know-how to get a car to brake and steer around an obstacle but has not pursued this technology because it could cause the car to veer into oncoming traffic. So, will we eventually become passengers in our own cars?

"We can do lots of things, but also we can only do so much," says Bengtsson. "The best prevention will always be the driver."

Joshua Dowling travelled to Spain as a guest of Volvo Australia