When the new Volvo S60 sedan smashed into the back of a semi-trailer at a media demonstration in Sweden in May, the gathered throng of about 100 journalists and camera crews couldn’t believe their eyes. Nor could the Volvo PR guy who, as the You Tube video shows, was left almost speechless. The car was supposed to slam on the brakes just in time and avoid impact. In the muffled recording, you can hear the Volvo man tell the guests “ah, that was not meant to happen”.
It’s a pity he wasn’t thinking on his feet: he could have said, “That’s what happens when you don’t have City Safety.” And then they could have wheeled out another car that worked.
So, what happened? Well, the test car’s battery went flat and, rather than replace the vehicle, Volvo chose instead to fast-charge it. But this process somehow fried the City Safety system and rendered it useless. There was, in fact, a warning light on the dash advising that something wasn’t right immediately prior to the test run. However, because there was a crash test dummy behind the wheel (not a real person), none of the support crew noticed. Since conducting its ‘autopsy’, Volvo has rejigged the threshold of its electronics system so a similar spike won’t cause a failure of the City Safety technology.
This isn’t the first time a City Safety demonstration went wrong. Two years ago at the Sydney Motor Show, Volvo drove a City Safety-equipped car towards an inflatable vehicle. The test had worked dozens of times in the past, but cleaners had buffed the wooden floor the night before. So when Volvo tested the car in the morning, it slid into the inflatable car because there wasn’t enough grip. Volvo solved this problem by scuffing the timber floor with their shoes. The demos eventually went ahead as planned.
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