So Much for Technology!

The solar roof might not be regulation, but the Insurance Institute tests for roof strength. All major car makers in the US use the safety pick certifications in marketing. Here is the Prime test with some explanation of the test methodology.



From 2017 Toyota Prius Prime

 

Here is a video showing a comparison of a good and poor rated vehicle. Both were tested at 15,000 pounds.

 

I agree.

I also think that it's good to put the limitations of DRCC into context by saying that what it sets out to do it does very well indeed and for me at least, it works flawlessly almost all of the time.

It was one of the key reasons for replacing my Gen2 with the latest model, makes motorway driving FAR easier and a lot safer IMHO.

I also think, based on other discussions about DRCC microwave radar on this forum, that the technology to achieve this is a lot more sophisticated than might at first appear and to say that it has no more intelligence than a fruit fly is IMHO not to do it justice at all.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

For me as well. I was also considering a Chevy Bolt, and the fact that it would beep like a madcar when something jumps in front of you, but would not actually apply the brakes, was a big factor in favor of the P.Prime. The fact that Toyota specifically engineered it to recognize the radar signature of pedestrians was also a big plus.

OK, I’ll take that, but at the risk of sounding weird, I’ll add: “don’t underestimate insect intelligence.” Fruit fly IQ > 0.

In the original “Cosmos” series, Carl Sagan spoke of the Viking Mars landers thus: “By some standards, the Viking lander is about as smart as a grasshopper, but by others, only as smart as a bacterium. There’s nothing demeaning in these comparisons; it took nature hundreds of millions of years to evolve a bacterium, and billions of years to evolve a grasshopper.”

iPhone ? Pro

 

FWIW, that appears to be ICS (Intelligent Clearance Sonar) stopping the car, as it would stop you from backing up too far in a garage. That, as opposed to radar. I doubt if a cardboard box has any appreciable radar return, and of course there’s no backward-pointing radar. Also, it doesn’t seem to signal a stop until it gets pretty darned close...


iPad ? Pro

 

An insomniac fruit fly on speed with radar eyes. Collision avoidance is not a trivial, space flight technology, Schiaparelli the latest:


Thanks for this:

I'm still BEV adverse but didn't realize the Bolt didn't apply the brakes, just an alert:

Vehicles equipped with front crash prevention are much less likely to rear-end other vehicles than the same models without the technology. 1, 2, 3 An Institute study found that systems with forward collision warning and automatic braking cut rear-end crashes in half, while forward collision warning alone reduces them by 27 percent. The autobrake systems also greatly reduce rear-end crashes involving injury. - IIS summary
​

One forum indicates the owner has to enable the brake function. Regardless, IIS lists the Bolt front crash prevention as "SUPERIOR" with optional equipment. FYI, the Prius Prime is also "SUPERIOR" on all trims.

• TOP SAFETY PICK+ -> Toyota Prius Prime
• TOP SAFETY PICK -> Chevy Bolt

Bob Wilson

 

Bolt also doesn't have adaptive cruise control

 

The PV roof doesn't use safety glass, and produces shards when it breaks.
I believe the US didn't get it mainly because of the cost. It is a $3000 option in Japan, but they and Europe have higher gasoline prices. So the electricity generated from the roof is worth more there.
Then weight is a factor for the fuel efficiency tests. In Europe, it is get the PV roof or all the other high end extras. Putting the roof on a fully loaded car would likely push the weight into another testing category that would mean testing it separate with likely lower results.

Other car models have turning headlights in the US; it is an option on the Ioniq's highest trim. But our outdated vehicle code does prevent other advances in car technology from arriving.

 

You might be overestimating the safety of the alternative: humans driving.


iPhone ? Pro

 

As human drivers already do on a massive scale. I think the threshold is when autonomous cars are safer on average than human drivers. Which sadly is something of a low bar, as I am unfortunately quite pessimistic about human drivers getting better, I think the distractions inside cars are already very bad and will only get worse.

However the legal aspect that you brought up is going to be a huge problem even when autonomous cars reach the level of sophistication that they are safer than the average human driver. Of course none of those drivers considers themselves unsafe, it's always the other drivers who are unsafe.

(edit, echoing mr88cet's message which I didn't see until I had already posted this)

 

We try to collect them in California.

 

A few years ago, I saw a TED talk by the then head of what is now Waymo — Google’s autonomous-driving effort. He pointed out that, although many of the underlying technologies are similar, Autonomous-driving vehicles are a fundamentally different problem from what might be called “extreme ADAS,” along the lines of Tesla Autopilot.

The nature of the problem for extreme ADAS is:
1. The human drives the car down a winding mountain road at 80MPH, then
2. tells the car to continue driving that way.
The Autonomous-Driving car, on the other hand, figures out the safest and most efficient way to get where you’re trying to go, and whenever safety concerns come up, it always optimizes for safety.

In short, Autonomous-Driving cars will be extremely boring, because they’ll always drive extremely cautiously!


iPhone ? Pro