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And the TopGear Award for Impact through Technology goes to... Volvo!
At a media event in Sweden over the weekend, the Swedish manufacturer chose to show off its latest technology: the new collision detection system on the S60.
You know how the tech works: sensors in the car detect obstacles in the road ahead, applying the brakes to slow or even stop the car before a big crunchy mess occurs.
A fine idea... so long as it works. Volvo's finest engineers released the unmanned S60 from its hutch at a speed of just under 30mph, sat back and...
Well, fast-forward to about 30 seconds into this clip and you'll find out. It doesn't require a firm grasp of Swedish to figure out that it doesn't go well.
Volvo blamed the failure of the technology on a battery issue which, it says, would have been easily spotted by a human driver. The collision detection system had also worked perfectly several times before the crash.
Maybe it was all a cunning PR ruse to demonstrate the effectiveness of the S60's crash structures.
Maybe, however, the Collision Detection System worked exactly as hoped, informing all and sundry after the impact that, yep, there had indeed been a collision.
We fear not. Whichever way, someone's going to have to go a long way to top this as Fail of the Month...
Open Car Bar
What do you think?
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petrolhead1106 commented on this article
at 04:39 pm on 10 May 2010
the cameramen didnt seem too surprised
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AshHorne commented on this article
at 05:01 pm on 10 May 2010
Fail of the month? I dunno - nothing says 'fail' quite like rich, stupid american kids who can't even drive a manual gearbox car. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hqx61roe-k
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JOHNJOE commented on this article
at 05:17 pm on 10 May 2010
Its funny because they did not expect it, the problem at the moment with cars is they are stuffed to the teeth with electronics monitoring everything from air flow meters, to throttle position and then these seemingly small components break and thats the car rendered useless until you take it to the garage who plugs it in and asks a lot of money for a relativley small part, its this electronics rubbish which has landed toyota in the problems it has at the moment with the recalls
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Mark94 commented on this article
at 06:34 pm on 10 May 2010
If that was in Ireland there would be shouts of yehooo and the like, it was if the cameramen knew what was going to happen. That's the swedes for you.
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Twister commented on this article
at 06:38 pm on 10 May 2010
1. @ AshHorne: I feel really sorry for the guy that happen to. 2: Something like this already happen when Mercedes tried to do the same thing I think, they also failed. But even so the people watching didn't react much did they. Cool as a cucumber sweden... er, people.
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