Here at SA Car Fan, we’re of the opinion that motoring is about to enter an extremely dangerous, irresponsible era. The transition to fallible autonomous systems and their owner’s blind faith in them is a deadly cocktail. We’ll see far more accidents as owners push the capabilities of these systems outside their intended design.
Volvo is not participating in full autonomous driving, well not yet. The Swedish manufacturer believes that a partial system should be the goal. Volvo is busy trialing the latest Intellisafe Autopilot system with a number of XC90s.
“We have no ambition to have a car that could drive in urban environments from A to B,” company CEO Håkan Samuelsson said at the unveiling of the new 40-series concepts recently. “If you’re a normal consumer, is that really what you are dreaming about? We believe more that in a situation where it’s not really fun to drive, you can switch on the autopilot and then sit back and do something else, using that time more productively. That is the product we are developing.”
A while back Volvo made a statement that it would accept liability for its self-driving cars and the company continues to stand by that. “If you want to be in that market, you have to take that liability,” said Samuelsson. “If you’re not ready to do that then you must do something else. Volvo would not market something you can switch on and then relax if it’s not a redundant system which is absolutely safe and secure.”
