Volvo Pledges ‘Zero-Fatality’ Autonomous Cars by 2020

Jennifer van der Kleut

As the race to build the most effective autonomous car heats up, Volvo has taken the competition one step further by promising to have a new autonomous Volvo on the road in which “no one will be killed or seriously injured.”

According to LeftLane News, Volvo safety engineer Erik Coelingh said in a CNN-produced video that the cars will combine advanced safety features with autonomous drive technology to create the alleged casualty-proof car.

Coehling says, first and foremost Volvo is working hard to improve upon safety features such as airbags and energy-dissipating body structures to ensure the car will be as safe as possible in the event of an accident.

Volvo says they are working on exterior “pedestrian airbags” as well as improving interior driver and passenger airbags. The pedestrian airbags will inflate from beneath the front hood of the car to cushion the impact with the pedestrian to help lessen injury, TechInsider explains.

Then, Coehling says they will develop the best autonomous drive technology to hopefully prevent accidents from ever happening. Those features include adaptive cruise control, auto lane keeping, impending collision braking assistance, traffic sign reading, and pedestrian and large animal detection.

For example, sensors will alert the driver if there is an object such as another car in their blind spot when changing lanes.

Some experts say, Volvo is already close to achieving its goal of having no one die in one of its cars. According to Tech Insider, the company tracks how many people in Sweden die in its cars each year; and in the previous generation of its XC90, only one person died. Furthermore, according to the Institute for Highway Safety latest safety data, no one in the U.S. died in an XC90 between 2009 to 2012.

The next stage of its plan-fully autonomous cars.

What do you think of Volvo’s plans? Tell us in the comments.