Volvo has its eye on safety

JUST when you thought Volvo was successfully eschewing the "boxy but safe" image, along comes the EyeCar.

Designed to showcase Volvo's most recent advanced safety developments, EyeCar is a concept designed to give drivers of all shapes and sizes an optimum seating position to ensure best possible visibility and comfort.

Volvo says a universally acceptable seating position has been something the car industry has failed to provide as yet.

Short drivers sometimes find it difficult to see comfortably over the instrument panel or determine the position of the car's nose. For tall drivers the problem is often that the head is too close to the roof.

The new technology in Volvo's EyeCar concept vehicle places all drivers at exactly the same elevation irrespective of differences in individual height, which in turn offers unrestricted vision and a seating position individually tailored to suit the specific driver The new technology in the Volvo EyeCar includes sensors that register the position of the driver's eyes and adjusts the position of the seat accordingly automatic electrical adjustment of the driver's seat to the optimum height for best visibility, and electrical operation that automatically adjusts the position of the steering wheel, pedal box and even the car's floor to provide the most comfortable driving position.

The driver can naturally fine-tune the adjustments for complete comfort. Owing to an entirely new B-pillar design, Volvo's engineers have also succeeded in providing a better field of vision from the driver's seat. At the same time, the function of the B-post in the car's collision safety structure has been further enhanced. Increased strength in the fixed seat back is utilised for absorbing incoming collision forces. These forces are then redirected and dissipated to the car's substantial floor and roof structures.

The Volvo EyeCar is the first sign that the Volvo Car Corporation has been appointed to lead the development of car safety within the entire Ford Motor Company.

Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz will become the first car manufacturer to offer brake-by-wire in a road car when it debuts Sensotronic Brake Control (SBC) on the next generation SL roadster, due to be launched in September, 2001.

With SBC, electric impulses are used to pass the driver's braking commands onto a microcomputer that processes various sensor signals simultaneously and, depending on the particular driving situation, calculates the optimum brake pressure for each wheel.

Mercedes-Benz claims SBC offers even greater active safety than conventional brake systems when braking in a corner or on a slippery surface.

The system also offers innovative additional functions to reduce the driver's workload.

These include Traffic Jam Assist, which brakes the vehicle automatically in stop-and-go traffic once the driver takes his or her foot off the accelerator, while the Soft-Stop function allows particularly soft and smooth stopping in town traffic.