A Dominican automotive blog recently published a video of a failed demonstration involving an autonomous Volvo XC60.
In the video, bystanders look on as the vehicle accelerates towards them in an attempt to show off it’s “auto-braking and pedestrian detection” technology. The only problem is that it does neither, and smashes directly into the onlookers.
The video went viral, receiving nearly 4,000,000 views and an official response from Volvo employees, who blamed the accident on the vehicle’s owner.
Volvo spokesperson, John Larsson, wrote in an email, “It seems they are trying to demonstrate pedestrian detection and auto-braking. Unfortunately, there were some issues in the way the test was conducted.”
According to Larsson, this specific vehicle did not have the pedestrian detection technology, which is an added feature that costs more money. He also said that the auto braking function would not have kicked in due to the rate at which the driver was accelerating.
While it’s easy to blame the owner of the vehicle for the accident, it does highlight an overlooked side effect of all the new auto-tech we’re seeing lately — operator confusion. Let’s just be glad this was done with a compact vehicle instead of a big rig.
