VIDEO: Autoblog tries out Volvo City Safety on boss's BMW
by John Neff on Oct 20th 2009 at 2:58PM 
Autoblog tries Volvo City Safety on XC60 – Click above to watch video after the jump
A number of bloggers on our team actually have real jobs, those crazy 9-5 things we full-time bloggers hear so much about. Sure, an actual 40-hour work week can tie one arm behind your back when trying to be a power blogger, but our own Dan Roth gets around this by incorporating his two incomes to achieve a task we set out for him.
The charge was simple: Try out Volvo's City Safety technology that comes on the new XC60. City Safety is Volvo's new active safety technology that uses an optical radar mounted at the top of the windshield to measure the speed and distance of any objects in front of the car. It does these calculations around 50 times per second, and in the event of an imminent collision with said objects, will automatically apply the brakes. It only works when the XC60 is traveling between 2-18 mph, though.
Dan's response: "Great, I'll set up some cardboard boxes and we'll see if it stops."
Our response: "Lame."
Dan went back to the drawing board and wound up producing the video after the jump. We expected him to up the ante beyond sacrificial boxes somehow, but he gets our mad respect for going this far. Oh, and in case you think we set up multiple cameras to shoot all those angles, think again. Dan got so comfortable with this test that he ran it five times to get all the angles.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Michael 3:04PM (10/20/2009)
That city safety thing is kinda scary, I tested it out at the LA Auto Show last year, and it does stop by itself. It's hard to not hit the brakes when you're that close to a car.
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mk15 3:13PM (10/20/2009)
it goes against what your instincts (should be) and is very disconcerting when you do it on purpose.. but it works and I bet the IIHS is loving this.
skant 3:21PM (10/20/2009)
Scary is when soccer moms get desensitized to stopping and are going at 19mph
Farwest 4:15PM (10/20/2009)
@skant
I LOL'd.
notYou 4:49PM (10/20/2009)
"It does these calculations around 50 times per second"
But did he try testing it during the other 10?
Kiiks 5:43PM (10/20/2009)
@skant I already avoid Volvos like the plague. Triple the normal following distance, a couple lanes over if possible. Camrys (including ES's) and CR-Vs
As for the gas pedal comments, my guess is that this car has throttle-by-wire. It wouldn't be hard for the ECU to cut fuel/spark as well.
And isn't optical radar LiDAR?
zzTroyzz 12:30AM (10/21/2009)
@notYou
What other 10--it is 50 times per second not minute if that is what you were thinking?
I was interested though, at 15mph you are travelling 22ft/s. Devide that by 50 and about every 5 1/3 inches the car is sampling the distance. *Sounds* pretty reasonable to me, but I have no idea.
Jared 10:01PM (10/21/2009)
Dan needs to trim his unibrow before making another video.
High 3:11PM (10/20/2009)
Verdy interesting, however I think you would be doing your boss a favor by hitting that old POS, at least then he might be able to write it off to his insurance or something.
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nrb 4:47PM (10/20/2009)
I'm pretty sure insurance wouldn't cover it. At least, it'd better not.
SeanG 6:52PM (10/20/2009)
That, sir, is an E38 7 series and is no POS. Certainly more of a BMW than any of the Bangle-rific monstrosities coming out of the roundel these days.
kbm123 10:55AM (10/21/2009)
Yea, but isn't that one of those purple BMWs?
william tell 3:11PM (10/20/2009)
Very informative vid, NOT. Without an interior floor mounted camera running simultaneously with a dash cam or bumper camera, how do we know he didn't just step on the brakes?
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Dan Roth 3:21PM (10/20/2009)
Yep, there were a couple other angles taht would have been nice to have gotten, but it's indeed city safety stopping the car, not me, and it's a very strange experience letting it do its thing.
-D
XGM 5:11PM (10/20/2009)
For all the haters this does work, and theres loads of other videos to back it up too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f3eieqVkPk
ericloewe 3:12PM (10/20/2009)
The guy's either nuts or he hit the brakes.
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Mike 3:13PM (10/20/2009)
Perfect now I can post to Auto blog while I drive and not worry about bumping into the guy in front of me. I knew technology would solve this problem of not being able to text while we drive.
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Monica Dickey 6:37PM (10/20/2009)
haha totally.
I worry about if this becomes precedent and all new cars have it... Then people go back to driving older cars.
cool_ozzyfromkalush 3:17PM (10/20/2009)
Nice eyebrow.
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Rich 3:22PM (10/20/2009)
I'm not seeing it.
Please re-run the test with the City Safety switched off.
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