[adykes]

And this would be it:

Just proves that the driver needs to pay some level of attention.

 

[adykes]

Yeah, that helped. What the hell was he saying? Was this simply over the threshold? Or was there a failure?

You will need to pardon me because my spoken Swedish is abysmal. But the TV people thought it was funny. No real reason was given at the time for the problem, they are investigating.

Later the Volvo guys say that because of the time strain that they were forced to fast charge the car's battery and that caused some failure in the City Safety system that they didn't notice.

 

[adykes]

I asked my press contact at VCNA for a comment, we'll see what they say.

 

[adykes]

http://www.wired.co.uk/videos/wired-things/2010-05/07/volvo-accidentally-smashes-new-s60-car

 

[adykes]

The airbags didn't go off because in a 35km/h accident they don't necessarily need to. It all depends on the forces of the accident and the rate of deceleration. I see that many news articles claim the S60 was going 35 or 30MPH, but it was actually going a little over 20 MPH.

 

[adykes]

Normally it would certainly go off at 35kmph!

Not quite true. According to the NHTSA (http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/airbags/airbags03/page3.html) says that normally 8-14MPH in a concrete barrier will cause them to deploy which is approximately 28MPH into something else. The S60 was going just under 21MPH which is in the "maybe" zone.

 

[adykes]

So the latest word from Volvo is that they are still investigating the cause of the issue, but they think it was related to the setup of the demonstration still and the possible battery charging. They should know in a few days and they again remind that City Safety has been demonstrated more than 1,000 times since 2008 to the press without it failing. (I have to say I have had an XC60 press car and I have have had City Safety work in the Volvo PR demo as well as once while driving it (oops) so I have seen it work. Go figure)

 

[adykes]

Airbags where deactivated in that car.

They've tested THAT car about 400 times before, without any problems.

How do you know? None of the public statements Volvo has made has said anything about that.

 

[adykes]

Watched the video on youtube, to me the S60 was approaching too fast for city safety to engage!

I have XC60 with Collision warning and auto brakes, that's what I think of it:
1- City safety is such a great tool, I tested it myself against some carton barriers at work garage, it just works everytime, but MUST BE below 18km/h for complete stopping, upto 30 it might hit the barrier.
2- Collision warning with autobrakes, active from 7km/h onwards, will still collide but with Much lower momentum. I testyed that at 55km/h towards a plastic mattress. It was amazing, you do touch it and the car stops 1 meter or so beyond where the barrier was. i am not sure if that test S60 had teh CWAB and was it active at that time? as the approaching speed I felt was beyond 30km/h. Same mistake happened here at Sydney Motor show I think the tester approached faster that 30k m and the car touch the inflatable car infront.
3- CWAB has problems seeing a stationary trucks for some reason. CWAB is also worse at night compared to morning times, from personal experience like the warning light and sound that occurs prior to autobrakes. So it has limitations, but hey, it it's like a hauk when you're driving and the vehicle infront of you is locked in, from a bike to a truck.

Speed was not the issue, Volvo has publicly said the car was moving at he correct speed but that the City Safety system failed. They have not however publicly said exactly what failed about the system, but they did claim that the team that was responsible for prepping the car failed to heed the malfunction warning message that the car displayed.

 

[adykes]

The reason the Auto brake failed on this S60 demo was because the car's battery was flat and was removed for recharge.

Upon reconnection, a dashboard warning came up saying something to the effect of "Auto brake function disabled".

A preparation error by the team readying the car meant this warning message wasnt spotted on the dashboard and hence the car ran with the system disabled.

As a pre-production car, it doesnt have airbags hence why they also didnt go off in the collision

Where are you getting this information? I have directly asked Volvo's press contact and was told that the S60 was a pre-production car, but it had 100% of all safety systems installed, including airbags. The crash was just not fast enough to activate them.

 

[adykes]

I was confused by what you said earlier, because it didn't jive with what I have been told by VCNA. According to the press release you posted, they were deactivated, not that it didn't have them at all. It also doesn't say anything about the battery being removed, recharged and replaced.

 

[adykes]

Hi
Battery flat and rapidly recharged / verses removed and recharged. In my experience, the battery wouldnt be recharged whilst both terminals were connected to the car

Actually in some of the interviews the Volvo rep implied just that, that the battery was charged as it was connected to the car, and that was they believe the cause of the failure: over-voltage.

 

[adykes]

Still, showed the S60 is structurally sound....

Agreed.

OT, I know, but does that mean I need to completely disconnect my battery if I ever need a jump?

No, not really. If you jump from another battery or a car and do it properly, then you will be ok. The problem is Volvo seems to have used a higher voltage fast charger to get it up when they should probably have just jump started the car. If you are going to use a fast charger, one that charges in minutes rather than hours, disconnecting is probably a good idea. However fast chargers arent terribly good for led acid batteries.