Volvo's Driver Alert lets you know when your driving skills wane and it's time for a coffee break.
(Credit: Volvo Car)Five new high-tech features will be available on Volvo's S80, V70 and XC70 models by the end of the year, the company announced Tuesday.
The Swedish company joins the ranks of several automakers who are bringing high-tech features to even the most budget models.
Volvo's most interesting feature may be a new take on monitoring driver behavior.
Driver Alert Control, as Volvo calls it, uses a camera and sensors to monitor a car's general behavior in terms of speed and staying in lane, not the driver's behavior within a cockpit. If, through a combination of factors, it calculates poor driving the car will sound a beep and flash a coffee cup on screen to remind the driver to take a break.
Adaptive cruise control, as with most cars, allows the driver to set a speed range and desired distance from the next car. The system then self-regulates speed based on those parameters.
Volvo also includes a distant alert feature that will additionally give a warning if the driver is tailgating while not in adaptive cruise control mode.
An updated version of the collision warning system Volvo released in 2006 will now automatically brake if the driver does not react in time after being given a warning. The car uses a combination of radar and camera to determine imminent crashing with other objects.
A feature to help prevent drifting into other lanes or changing lanes without warning other drivers, which Volvo says is the cause of a quarter of all accidents in the U.S., has also been added.
Volvo's lane departure warning system uses a camera to track road markings and sound an alarm when drivers depart their lane without signaling. The system differs from the BMW and Audi lane departure warning systems that vibrate the steering wheel to mimic the feeling of rumble strips when drivers drift out of lane.
News of the high-tech feature availability follows Volvo's announcement that its 2008 C30 turbo diesel "Efficiency" model will get 52 miles per gallon.
The 2008 BMW 5-series
Drivers of the new BMW 5 series will have the option of an extra tech safety device to ensure that they make it to the boardroom meeting in one piece. The 2008 5 series, which will make its official debut at this week's Geneva auto show, will come with the intelligent Lane Departure Warning system (LDW), which will warn drivers if they are about to cross over a lane-dividing line without using their turn signal.
Rather than sounding a chime or flashing a light on the dashboard (a la the system in the 2007 Infiniti M35 Sport), the BMW system will actually reproduce the physical sensation of driving over a rumble strip by generating tactile (or "haptic") feedback in the steering wheel--in a similar way to that in video-game steering wheels.
The LDW system, which is a collaboration between BMW, Siemens VDO, and Mobileye, makes use of range-finding CMOS cameras mated to electronic control units with advanced algorithm technology, in order to detect when the vehicle is about to drift across a lane marking. Unlike the Infiniti system, the BMW Lane Departure Warning system is designed to preempt--rather than record--lane transgression, in order to alert drivers before it's too late.
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