Category: News

Adaptive driving beams are finally going to be legal in the U.S.

Mercedes- Benz DIGITAL LIGHT: Die revolutionäre Scheinwerfertechnologie DIGITAL LIGHT mit nahezu blendfreiem Fernlicht in HD-Qualität und mit mehr als zwei Millionen Pixel Auflösung steht für höchste Präzision, optimale Sicht des Fahrers nahezu ohne Blendwirkung sowie für Performance, Fahrassistenz und Kommunikation. Mercedes- Benz DIGITAL LIGHT: The revolutionary headlamp technology DIGITAL LIGHT with almost dazzle-free main beam in HD quality and a resolution of more than two million pixels represents highest precision, optimal view for the driver almost without dazzling effect as well as performance, driver assistance and communication.

Listen up, America. Adaptive driving beams are finally going to become legal, thanks to a provision in the infrastructure bill. This is great news for nighttime driving safety — your author is particularly excited that this technology will finally be legal in cars sold in the U.S.

In case you aren't familiar, adaptive driving beams are fully explained in this story here. But in short, they’re the trick headlights we see in many European cars that can adapt their high beam illumination based on the surrounding environment. The system uses cameras and sensors to pick out other cars on the road, and is able to trace a perfect, darkened opening for the other cars, while still throwing out high beam-like light everywhere else. In a way, your brights never fully turn off. They only dim their beam in the select spots necessary so as not to blind other drivers. The headlights also dim their beam when directed at road signs as you approach them so as not to dazzle the driver with a bright reflection. There’s potential for much more, too, as some manufacturers have designed headlights that can project warning signs onto pavement, swivel up to highlight pedestrians entering the road, highlight lane changes and more. You can watch a video example of everything we described below in an Audi demonstration of the tech.

We’ve been missing out, but that’s about to change.

So, how has this tech finally found a path to legality? For years it’s been barred due to outdated regulations in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 108. The exact language that held manufacturers back specifically states that headlights must have a dedicated low beam and dedicated high beam to be compliant and road legal. The new infrastructure bill changes that by laying out the following in a headlamps section: “to allow for the use on vehicles of adaptive driving beam headlamp systems.”

This request comes in the form of a direction to amend FMVSS No. 108 to include the adaptive driving beams provision, and the bill allows for two years to get it done. So yes, we could theoretically be waiting another two years, but no longer than that.

In addition to making adaptive driving beams legal, the infrastructure bill also says that testing of headlight performance will now be required. It doesn’t go much further than that, but we suspect it’ll resemble the headlight testing currently done by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

Watch Mercedes demonstrate Digital Light:

Watch vehicles go flying in terrifying train crash with car hauler

The video above captures what happened after a semi truck carrying a load of vehicles got itself high-centered on a railroad crossing Friday near Thackerville, Okla. An Amtrak train hits the incapacitated truck at speed in one of the most spectacular crashes we can recall, sending the truckload of vehicles flying and crumpling the car trailer. Worse, five people aboard the Amtrak were injured and were transported to a hospital, according to Love County firefighters, though the injuries were non-critical.

Fire officials said the driver of the truck was not injured, nor were his dogs. In the video, you can see someone jumping up and down in a vain attempt to warn the train. That may well have been the trucker.

View the 10 images of this gallery on the original article

Photos in the gallery above show the aftermath of the crash, with some vehicles nearly unrecognizable. The impact lifted the locomotive off the tracks and derailed it, as you can see in one of the photos.

The train was northbound. Thackerville is in southern Oklahoma north of Dallas/Fort Worth. Some of the Amtrak passengers were ferried in school buses to lodging, while some stayed aboard. There was a locomotive at the rear of the train, so the damaged locomotive was uncoupled and a locomotive at the south end of the train was used to take passengers back to Fort Worth.

Porsche is developing a system to compose unique music for your drive

Modern day automobiles have done a lot to provide custom experiences for just about every driving scenario, from ambient lighting to suspension settings. Audio has also been included to an extent with better stereos and variable exhaust systems, but Porsche is going a step further. It's working on something called the Soundtrack My Life Project and having the car compose unique music that responds to your driving.

To be clear, this is not just the car selecting certain songs from your playlists or streaming services that fit either laid-back or enthusiastic driving. Instead, Porsche has libraries of original music bits and pieces that will be combined and arranged by an algorithm to match your driving. You pick the style, whether it's electronic, piano or some other genre, and it starts piecing things together. Come to a stop, and the music slows down and becomes less busy; start driving vigorously, and it transitions to more uptempo stuff with more instruments and layers.

It's currently in prototype form, and it only works with Porsche's own original music. So you can't use samples from your own music library, nor can you upload your own original music pieces. And being a prototype, it's not yet available. But during a presentation from Porsche, someone working on the project said that it could be available as soon as next year. Of course, that's subject to change. We're certainly curious to try it out. It could be pretty fun, kind of like the dynamic soundtracks you find in video games that help elevate the gameplay. On the other hand, we could see the novelty wearing off quickly, with people switching back to listening to traditional music instead.

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Robotic dog gets laid off from New York City’s police force

New York City's police department has prematurely ended its relationship with Digidog, a robotic dog built by Boston Dynamics and tested as part of a pilot program. While some praised the robot for its ability to venture into dangerous situations, others claimed it sent the wrong message to New York residents at precisely the wrong time.

City officials had high hopes for the robot, and they sent it marching into hazardous situations on several occasions. It was used in barricade and hostage situations, according to The New York Times, and it once delivered food to hostages during a home invasion in Queens. Sending officers instead of the robot could have put lives in danger.

Not everyone welcomed its presence, however. Critics have argued it sends the wrong message to the communities it's used in. "At a time where we should be having more beat cops on the street, building relationships with residents, they're actually headed in another direction in trying to replace them with robots," said Ben Kallos, a Democrat who represents the Upper East Side in the city council, in an interview with the Times.

Others agreed. The NYPD has used robotic devices, in such duties as bomb squad work, for decades, but something about the anthropomorphic quality of Digidog rubbed people the wrong way. Some compared it to the terrifying robotic dogs in the "Metalhead" episode of the "Black Mirror" TV anthology:

Some opined the four-legged robot symbolizes how aggressive police officers can be when they're dealing with poor communities. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was "glad the Digidog was put down," according to a spokesperson.

John Miller, the police department's deputy commissioner, sees the matter differently. "People had figured out the catchphrases and the language to somehow make this evil," he said. His view didn't prevail; Digidog's contract was terminated in April 2021, four months ahead of schedule. It participated in about six missions since it joined the force in August 2020, and New York spent $94,000 to lease it for a year.

"For now, this is a casualty of politics, bad information, and cheap sound bites. We should have named it Lassie," Miller concluded. The robot has been sent back to Boston Dynamics, though Miller said it might come back. It's more agile than other robots (it can climb stairs), it shoots better video footage, and it's cheaper to buy or lease.

Elsewhere in America, robotic dogs are far less controversial and surprisingly useful. Ford began testing two robotic dogs (called Fluffy and Spot, respectively) at one of its manufacturing plants in Michigan in 2020. Both were also built by Boston Dynamics to scan and document their surroundings in order to help engineers retool the plant.

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Watch Mitsubishi Express van bend its way to 0-star crash test rating

Mitsubishi became a champion of economies of scale when it joined the Renault-Nissan alliance in 2016, but the merger triggered at least one undesirable side effect. The Express, a badge-engineered version of the Renault Trafic van, received a zero-star crash test rating from the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).

Released in Australia and in New Zealand in 2020, the Express was damned by the safety watchdog for lacking chest protection, a central airbag to prevent the occupants from hitting each other and an airbag for the passenger sitting in the middle of the three-person bench. ANCAP also noted the model is not available with electronic driving aids, like automatic emergency braking, pedestrian detection and lane-keeping assist.

View the 8 images of this gallery on the original article

Consequently, the Express scored 55% for adult occupant protection, 40% for vulnerable road user protection, and 7% for safety assist. ANCAP argued the Express is a safety hazard even to motorists not traveling in it. "The front structure of the Express presented a high risk to the occupants of an oncoming vehicle," it wrote, adding that this gave the van a penalty. It pointed out that more driving aids would have increased the rating, however.

While vans often lag behind in the safety department, scoring zero stars is highly unusual, especially in 2021; the last-generation Express managed to score a one-star rating in 2011. The Toyota HiAce tested in 2019 received a five-star rating, while the made-in-China LDV G10 managed to score three stars in a 2015 crash test. In Europe, the Trafic that the Express is based on earned a three-star rating in 2015, though tests have gotten stricter since.

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Apple Maps introduces user-based road hazard reporting, including speed traps

Apple just released an update for its Apple Maps application that brings Waze-like functionality to the iPhone’s native navigation. It allows users to report a number of different road situations, with speed traps being one of them. It’s only available to those with the iOS 14.5 beta for the time being, but we’ll give you a rundown of what to expect when the masses are brought in.

One big positive for this new reporting function is that it’s fully operational in Apple CarPlay. You can even use Siri to report things, so you can tell the voice assistant that “there’s a speed check here.” Reporting speed traps is certainly one of the most valuable (and money-saving) features of Waze, but similar to the old standby, Apple allows you to report other items, including hazards and accidents. Of course, you can break those down further by saying that there’s something on the road, or anything else along those lines that Apple has programmed in.

Building up a loyal and attentive user base similar to Waze’s could take some time, as Waze has had years of providing similar services to its users. There’s also the limitation of this feature only being usable by iPhone owners. Apple may have the majority of the active smartphone market in the U.S., but there’s still a massive chunk of the population that use Android phones, and therefore won’t be able to contribute their reporting data. Meanwhile, both Waze and Google Maps are available across ecosystems, effectively reaching a wider user base.

Apple is now the last of the big navigation/maps interfaces to adopt these features — Google Maps introduced similar functionality in 2019, and Waze has had it for years before both of them. Google Maps and Waze both offer more robust reporting systems, too, as you can get more granular with the types of hazards that are reportable.

It’s not entirely clear when this Apple Maps feature will come out of beta, but regardless of limitations, it will be a welcome improvement to a navigation app that so many people use. 

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Amazon is letting carmakers customize its Alexa voice recognition tech

Amazon doesn't build cars, but its presence in the automotive industry is growing. It announced a feature called Alexa Custom Assistant that gives carmakers the ability to customize its voice recognition technology.

At its core, the feature is built around the same artificial intelligence-powered digital assistant that millions of people have in their homes, and that numerous carmakers are putting in their models. Companies who choose to use the Custom Assistant tool kit will be able to personalize the technology by choosing unique wake words, selecting different voices, and either adding or removing features depending on the type of car it's going into.

Amazon will provide the foundation, and each company will choose what to build on it. Dodge could replace "Alexa, start the engine" with "Alexa, fire up my big ol' Hemi," for example. Or, Jeep could teach the assistant to disconnect the Wrangler's sway bars, a function the Chrysler 300 doesn't need. In addition to offering a turnkey solution for an undisclosed fee, and giving companies an alternative to the tedious and expensive process of developing software in-house, Amazon also promises to continuously improve the technology and fix bugs.

Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) will be the first company to use Alexa Custom Assistant, though we don't know when it will introduce the feature, or which model(s) will get it first. It's reasonable to assume that other firms will take advantage of it, too. Rivian, which Amazon has poured a substantial amount of money into, comes to mind.

Amazon isn't the only technology company that views the automotive industry as an increasingly important source of revenue. Google makes its Android software available to companies looking for a shortcut to the land of user-friendly infotainment systems. Like Amazon, it provides the shell, and its customers choose what's in it. FCA and Polestar both use an Android-based infotainment system, but the interfaces look nothing alike.

So far, Apple is the only major holdout. Instead of focusing on what it does best — creating software and selling it — it's ostensibly in the process of developing its own car, which it will allegedly ask Hyundai to build.

HooliGhana is like Ken Block’s Gymkhana, but with a bike and BMW

If you've ever watched Ken Block's famous Gymkhana videos and thought, "This would be better with motorcycles," Andy DiBrino's HooliGhana is for you. DiBrino is two-time RSD Super Hooligan national champion and winner of the 2019 Nitro Games Super Hooligan flat track competition. These are dirt-track skirmishes similar to Outlaw or Legends races, but with two wheels instead of four.

However, DiBrino has taken his bike drifting skills to the pavement, showing incredible skill controlling his modified 2019 KTM 790 Duke with trademark zebra paint job. The Gymkhana videos, which started with a Subaru, then got Ford sponsorship, and now are passing the torch back to Subaru with Travis Pastrana at the helm, have garnered worldwide fame with its insane car stunts. DiBrino hopes to do the same for bike drifting.

HooliGhana shows just how insanely deft DiBrino is at sliding his motorcycle through decreasing radius spiral lined with cans of Rockstar (because of course there would be an energy drink sponsor). There are plenty of other stunts as well, like drifting around a slow-moving scooter and along wide sweepers at The Ridge Motorsports Park in Shelton, Washington.

But wait, there's more. Partway through the video it cuts to a 1997 BMW 328is with DiBrino again behind the wheel. He then shows off his car drifting chops, which are even more impressive when you consider the fact that he's only been sending four wheels sideways for four months.

According to Asphalt and Rubber, DiBrino was turned onto drifting when a local track of his accidentally double-booked his motorcycle track day with a drifting event. Seeing E36 BMWs and Nissan 240SX coupes sliding around, he was instantly hooked. Because the Super Hooligan calendar was cut short due to the COVID-10 pandemic, DiBrino spent his time practicing the art of the drift. Turns out, he was a natural, thanks to his 21 years of experience with dirt-track battles.

Drifting is hard enough in a car. Seems like it would be doubly difficult with half the number of wheels.

Volvo patent describes a steering wheel that slides from left to right

View the 4 images of this gallery on the original article

Volvo is leveraging by-wire technology to develop a system that allows the steering wheel, the instrument cluster, and a host of switches to slide from one side of the interior to the other. It's a clever invention that turns the definition of the driver's seat on its head, and the Swedish company was recently awarded a patent for it.

Published in September 2020, the patent describes a "vehicle having multiple driving positions" thanks to a steering wheel that's mounted on a rail that stretches across the entire width of the cabin. That means the driver can sit on the left side of the car, like in most countries, or on the right side of it, like in Australia, England, and Japan, among other nations. Oddly, someone could even choose to sit in the middle of a front bench seat.

Looking ahead, Volvo added that sliding the steering wheel out of the way can allow users to enjoy more space when they're traveling in a semi-autonomous car. For example, if you're stuck in traffic, you could bump the steering wheel out of the way and read a book while a properly-equipped car navigates the bottleneck on its own. It's far easier and cheaper than designing a concept car-like steering wheel that retracts into the dashboard.

Making this technology work would require replacing all of the vehicle controls with by-wire components; it's not as science fiction-esque as it sounds. Infiniti has notably used steer-by-wire technology for years, and brake-by-wire is slowly spreading across the automotive industry. Acceleration-by-wire is so common that's it's mundane. The digital instrument cluster and the various light-related stalks could simply slide with the steering wheel.

As for the pedals, Volvo explained they could be replaced by pressure-sensitive pads, hydraulically- or pneumatically actuated sensors, or something else entirely. Either way, they'd be installed in both front footwells, and the system would automatically activate the ones located on the side the steering wheel is on.

Volvo hasn't commented on the patent, and it certainly hasn't announced plans to put the technology described by the documents in a regular-production car in the near future. It's a cool feature, but it's important to keep in mind that it often takes years for something described in patent filings to end up in showrooms. What remains to be proven is that engineering this system with an eye on mass production and getting it approved by regulators around the world would cost less than building different cars for right- and left-hand-drive markets.

Splitting the difference

Carmakers have often tried to engineer their way out of having to manufacture left- and right-hand-drive cars, or at least make the conversion as cost-efficient as possible. Part of the reason why the original Mini's speedometer was installed in the middle of the dashboard rather than behind the steering wheel was because it could stay there regardless of where the driver was sitting. It was later placed in front of the driver, but it returned to the middle in the first BMW-developed model released in 2000. McLaren's epoch-shaping F1 put the driver front and center for a multitude of reasons: improved visibility, a better driving position, and no market-specific layouts.

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Box truck drops box, box jumps back into truck — twice

This is a story of a box truck and its bouncing baby box. An automatic transporation-focused Twitter bot named @tw_kotsujiko run by @90ntyan posted an amusing video this week of a storage box falling out of a moving truck and bouncing back into the truck's cargo area. What seemed to be a trick or prank of some sort was likely the result of a perfect blend of air flow and pressure that directed the box back to its home. 

Via Jalopnik, the video was filmed on a highway in Asia. The box truck is seen driving with the rear door open and several pieces of cargo inside. Specifically, there appears to be at least three mid-sized boxes made of cardboard or styrofoam. 

At six seconds in, the box falls, hits the pavement, does some flips, and drops right back into the truck. Then it falls off again, bounces again, and perfectly places itself in the corner of the truck, aligned with the other boxes. Despite the opportunity to venture into the great outdoors, the young box simply coudn't muster the will and might to leave the nest. 

The text attached to the video roughly translates to, "certainly there is a Karman vortex behind the truck." A second translated comment reads, "Some people are debating Kármán vortex and slipstream, but they both mean the same phenomenon. The former is the 'vortex' that can be formed behind, the latter often refers to the act of using it." According to NASA, "von Kármán vortices arise when winds are diverted around a blunt, high-profile area," a phenomenon first described by physicist Theodore von Kármán in 1912.

We're not qualified to detail the exact science behind it, but basically the box, which apparently has nothing remotely weighted inside, falls out, is kicked up by one air stream, and is kicked back in by another. *Aaron Paul voice* Yeah, science! 

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