Many of you might have seen the video with the title “Volvo’s auto brake system fails at launching ceremony… MD paralysed”. This video has been circulating (once again) on social media and messaging apps.
Volvo Cars would like to reiterate that in the depicted incident the XC60 was equipped with City Safety, however, it did not have the Pedestrian Detection functionality – this is sold as a separate package and would have been needed to mitigate or avoid the car colliding with the two men.
Even if the car was equipped with this feature, the heavy acceleration of the driver could have caused the system to be overridden and deactivated; the Volvo auto-braking (mitigation and avoidance) technology is highly advanced and in cases which the car detects that the driver intends to perform the action deliberately, it will deactivate itself.
Contrary to the title of the video, both men were alright and none of them were paralyzed nor were they a Managing Director of Volvo Cars.
Volvo Car Malaysia strongly recommends its dealers, partners and customers to never perform test towards real humans.
City Safety has been acknowledged to contribute to safer driving in heavy city traffic by avoiding or mitigating rear end collisions with other vehicles in low speeds by braking. The system is active in speeds up to 50 km/h.
I’m not sure what to make of this “accident video” of a Volvo car crashing. It looks like it could be a fake, but I’m not sure.