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Continue reading Tesla reportedly faces criminal probe over self-driving claims
Tesla reportedly faces criminal probe over self-driving claims originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 26 Oct 2022 16:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading Ford thinks Bluetooth LE can keep pedestrians and cyclists safe from cars
Ford thinks Bluetooth LE can keep pedestrians and cyclists safe from cars originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsFiled under: Green,Tesla,Safety,First Drives,Technology,Emerging Technologies,Future Vehicles
Continue reading Brembo’s Sensify brakes are nothing short of a small revolution
Brembo’s Sensify brakes are nothing short of a small revolution originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 27 Jul 2022 06:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mitsubishi Electric is showing the latest version of its EMirai concept vehicles. The EMirai series has made recurring appearances at CES, showing off the company's — which is a separate entity from Mitsubishi Motors — latest driving technologies. The newest iteration, whose complete name is the EMirai xS Drive Concept, is scheduled for debut at CES 2022.
Past EMirai concepts ("Mirai", like the Toyota hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, means "future" in Japanese) have focused on technologies such as driver biometrics and augmented reality to make help alleviate the task of driving. The EMirai xS Drive continues on this theme with two primary advancements.
In the realm of biometrics, the concept monitors the the driver with a near-infrared camera to detect their health. It not only checks on drowsiness, but emergency situations where an autonomous intervention may be required. It does this by keeping tabs on the driver's respiration rate and pulse, as well as checking for sudden changes in facial expressions like the closing of eyelids or opening of the mouth. If an emergency is detected, the car will take over and park to prevent accidents.
This seems to be geared towards elderly drivers, which tend to live in rural and suburban areas in Japan where public transportation isn't always an option. Mazda recently released a similar technology in Japan as well.
The system can also detect passengers, including children, using radio waves. By not relying on a weight sensor embedded in the seat like in some modern vehicles, the system can detect a child even if he or she is hiding in a footwell.
The EMirai xS Drive also uses a Mitsubishi Electric High Definition Locator to operate adaptive headlights. Operating in conjunction with the driver monitor above, it turns the headlights to better illuminate the direction where the driver's head is turned, such as a curve or slope ahead.
The system also looks for other hazards, like pedestrians who may be crossing a dark road, and uses the adaptive headlights to cast more light on those subjects. It also looks for vehicles approaching from behind, and projects a warning onto the road surface ahead, within the headlight beam spread, so the driver knows what's behind without shifting focus onto a rear-view mirror.
It appears, though, whereas past EMirai concepts have been built around an actual show car, the latest evolution is just a four seats and a dashboard in a standalone cockpit. While Mitsubishi might be on the name of the concept, this is not intended to be an exclusive feature to Mitsubishi Motors' vehicles. The Mitsubishi Group is so vast, with interests in everything from banking to mining, that Mitsubishi Electric will likely develop this solution for use in any brand that is willing to buy the technology.
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Filed under: Government/Legal,Safety,Technology,5g Connectivity
Continue reading FCC challenged over decision to shift auto spectrum to wireless devices
FCC challenged over decision to shift auto spectrum to wireless devices originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 3 Jun 2021 06:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsMitsubishi 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.
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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Common driver-assist technologies like adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assist are meant to keep vehicle occupants safe, but a new study finds that they also make distracted driving more likely — especially with drivers who are more familiar with the technology.
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reports that drivers who use both safety technologies were more likely to be distracted — by their mobile phones, adjusting the car stereo or other controls, or simply taking their eyes off the road — when they were accustomed to the advanced driver-assistance systems than those who were using them for the first time. The study authors say the disparity could reflect “a lack of trust in the automated systems.”
The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute combed through data from two previous studies. In one, researchers observed 30 people driving their own personal vehicles for the equivalent of one year's worth of data. In the other, they gave 120 participants a study vehicle and observed each of them driving for a month. All the vehicles featured adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assistance systems. They were also equipped with video cameras and sensors to collect data about the driver and other information.
Drivers in the former group with their own cars were 50% more likely to engage in secondary tasks and 80% more likely to engage in visual or manual distractions when using the semi-autonomous systems, researchers found. They also took more frequent and longer glances at non-driving-related tasks and kept their eyes on the road less.
Participants in the other group were less likely to be distracted while adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assist systems were engaged than they were during manual driving. But these drivers, who received leased vehicles and some training on how to use the systems, were slightly more likely to speed when both systems were active than the drivers who used their own vehicles.
The researchers theorize that people may become over-reliant on automation features the more familiar they become with them. They also note that the group of drivers who operated their own vehicles did not receive the same training on the safety systems, despite ostensibly receiving some information about them before or after purchasing their vehicles.
The study adds new wrinkles to what we know about distracted driving, which accounted for 3,166 fatalities in 2017, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the emergence of semi-automated driving systems. Earlier this year, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety issued a study in which it found that, while usage of phones while behind the wheel dropped, more people were using them for texting or other messaging while driving.
Volkswagen's European-spec Passat wagon came up short in the world-renowned "moose test," swinging its long tail out wide in the infamous maneuverability test designed to evaluate a vehicle's ability to spare a hypothetical moose (not to mention the vehicle's occupants) in the event that he wanders into the travel lane.
In this case, the evaluation performed by Km77.com (spotted by Motor1) produced results that might raise a few eyebrows, especially among those who covet the wagon variant of VW's midsize car.
The Passat initially fails the test at 48 mph, with its tail snapping loose as the driver completes the initial lane change. It then swings wide in the opposite direction as the driver attempts to correct for the oversteer.
Over the course of the test, the Passat manages to tag cones on both ends of the maneuver. If this were a real road — especially a narrow two-lane in Europe — those would be curbs or perhaps even soft shoulders.
Km77.com repeated the test multiple times, finally getting the Passat to behave at 45 mph (73 kph), which the outlet described as "quite slow" as evaluation speeds go.
While "moose test" may be the catchy term for it, the evaluation is simply an emergency lane-change maneuver. It is far more likely to be relevant for drivers who may encounter children or reversing cars encroaching on the road than the four-legged beast that inspired its name.
It's notorious for punishing vehicles engineered with a high center of gravity, with American-market crossovers and SUVs often getting called out for their poor performance in one of the most notorious evasive maneuver tests in the world.
Sedan-based station wagons simply aren't supposed to suffer from the same shortcomings. VW's Euro-spec Passat wagon is the rare exception. It's not only a low-slung wagon, but one engineered in Europe — where expectations for vehicle dynamics are ostensibly higher. We don't get the Passat wagon here in the United States. But we do get the sedan.
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In two areas of the country, from two completely separate sources, school bus-themed music videos have surfaced on the internet this summer. One, from the official Michigan City Area Schools account, takes a light-hearted approach to the serious topic of stopping for school bus drops and pickups. The other, from a Florida driver named Mr. Jay, remixes "Old Town Road" into a jokey song about life behind the wheel of a school bus.
A remix of a Lil Nas X remix, "Washboard Road" is titled after a particularly bumpy route in East Pasco County, Florida, that Jay Heilman drives on a regular basis. Heilman says he heard his students singing "Old Town Road," and he freestyled the chorus off the cuff: "I’m gonna take my bus down the washboard road, I’m gonna drive until my mirrors fall off."
Heilman was poking fun at the road, but he says his mirror actually did fall off on two separate occasions. The rest of the song has lyrics about the kids' constant complaining and pedestrian drivers not stopping when his stop sign is out. The full lyrics are written in the description of the video on YouTube.
The second video, which has equally high levels of production value, is all about safety. "Stop Arm," a reference to the collapsible stop sign on school buses, starts with a statistic: "On just one day, April 23, 2019, Michigan City Area Schools bus drivers recorded 38 motorists ignoring their extended stop arms. Please STOP, before you hurt a child. (It's the law)." The sad and frustrating message then goes black and the video transitions into a group of drivers who start singing, "STOP! when the arrrrrrmmmm is ouuuuutttttt" to the tune of the hit song from The Supremes, "Stop in the Name of Love."
The video pays special emphasis to the part of the law that states both sides of traffic, including oncoming traffic, must stop when a school bus has its stop sign out. We've written about these rules time and time again, but with the school year starting back up, it's never a bad idea to remind the masses. Watch both videos above and below, and please be careful driving around school buses this season.
Volvo just released a new mobile service designed to guide you through what to do after a car crash. It's a simple bit of tech, but might prove helpful if you weren't up to speed on what to do after a light brush up with another vehicle.
The service is called Car Accident Advisor. After confirming to Volvo Customer Care that you are uninjured and not in need of emergency services, you'll get a text to your phone that links you to this service. Assuming you have an internet connection, the application will proceed to guide you through the necessary steps one should take after getting into an accident.
Volvo says the app will prompt the driver to capture photos and write down facts about the accident. It asks if other vehicles are involved, determines your exact location and allows you to pinpoint the areas of the car that were damaged. After doing that "paperwork," Volvo then allows you to submit it in a nicely organized report directly to your insurer. This allows you to get your insurance claim in the process right away, hopefully speeding up the entire process. The last guided step Volvo offers is a body shop/service finder. It lists approved Volvo shops and can arrange a tow to those shops, so you can theoretically get a quick start on repairs.
The benefits for someone unprepared are obvious, but this could be handy for experienced drivers, too, since an accident can be pretty disorienting. Volvo says the service will work on all model year 2015.5 or newer Volvos. If you have a Volvo older than that, you can trigger the service manually with a phone call to Volvo Car Customer Care. There is no cost to using the Accident Advisor either way.
