I'll start by saying I am entirely a Volvo fan. My first car was a Volvo, and I'd be thrilled if I could afford a 2011 S60. This car has been in the news a lot recently, and here's why:

...that's a pretty big oversight, wouldn't you say? A braking system malfunction? If you're not familiar with the system, what happens is that the car has a radar system, that beeps to let you know the car/obstacle in front of you has slowed down or hard braked (say on the highway when they slam their brakes). It "charges" the brakes to react faster, and if you as the driver to do not react, the car is supposed to stop on its own. As you can see, at 35 kmh (about 22 mph I thnk...) the car did not stop. This was in front of media and press, who of course went back and spoke of this fail. Stock prices dropped as a result, but surprisingly, not as low as I would have expected. It turns out the problem occurred because of a low battery (as I have seen). So really, in my opinion, if to conserve battery power and not become stranded the car's superfluous safety features don't function - I think that's okay. Radar detection *is* superfluous. First, you should use your eyes. It does the same thing. But I doubt people agree with me. The damage has been done to Volvo's reputation. But what really amazes me - I guess I shouldn't be surprised - is the public's response to it.

People are calling out that this is a major catastrophe, when first off: it is your second to last line of defense against the unforeseeable (the last line of course being crumple zones and bumpers). Someone commented on the video that "this car is not ready." Ready for what? Do people really intend to take this car out, zooming up to 40, 50, 60 mph at their friends thinking "the car will stop itself. This is for fun!" I don't like that message, and I get the feeling (via Volvo's "naughty" campaign on their website) that Volvo is trying to perpetuate it. I think I am glad the test failed: it shows that the car is just an instrument. There is no such thing as a fail-safe car, and it bothers me that people think that this system was the end all to all of our front end crash problems.

So the question I pose is this, are our cars making us stupid? I think they are. Don't get me wrong: safety technology has saved lives, and this has the potential to save countless more. There are some encounters that are impossible to foresee. But there are others that could have been avoidable. IE speeding on the highway, tailgating the guy in front of you when you're boxed in by rush hour traffic. Or going 50 mph down a residential street with children playing ball in their driveway. Technology like this is great. It has the potential to greatly revolutionize how we view safety. But I think as a result, technology like this - like most technology - has made us lazy.

EDIT: The pedestrian sensory system is part of the $2100 MSRP technology package. It doesn't even come stock.

Quote from (Fire_Kame;)

So the question I pose is this, are our cars making us stupid?

No, people not thinking for themselves are making us stupid. How many minutes per day does the average John Doe spend sitting in his recliner thinking about the morality of the past day's actions, or the superfluity (superfluousness?) of a radar system in a car? It's probably pretty close to zero. On one hand, this is a good thing because it means we don't have to think about it, our society can function without every individual member having to think about every tiny facet of our society due to things like specialization of labor. In general, we can trust that these safety features are being made to protect ourselves, for example. On the other hand, we have exactly what you're getting at: a large group of people voicing opinions about a technology/concept/idea that they know little to nothing about, and have thought even less about. So my answer is no, cars aren't making us stupid, but there is a problem. I would blame the coddling nature of the media.

No, you can't blame to technology or tools. The public education system is making people more stupid. I can remember back during my K-5 years school was great, teachers gave a shit and actually taught us how to think. After that, 6-12, everything just went to hell in a hand basket. That was in 2000-2007, maybe an effect of Bush's No Child Left Behind?
Meh, I feel that if you think a car should drive/stop itself makes it reliable to not pay attention while driving makes you stupid.
Thinning the herd.

... What does the ability to notice things stopping and pressing a pedal have to do with intellect? How does expecting features to work during a public media demonstration show stupidity?

You can make the argument that we're getting lazier (and it seems to be one of your points) - I'll respond by saying that we're redirecting our effort away from mundane tasks like getting to work to actually doing the work.

I think this can cause several crashes if the sensory data is not perfect for every situation. I definitely do not want the car to start to break if I'm cutting lanes by speeding up to a car in front of me in order to switch.

However, this would be a nice safety net. There was a couple times I cut it close with accidents, like going 70mph on the freeway and noticing way too late that for whatever reason, all the cars in front of me are no longer moving. Then there are assholes who cut in front of you and break.

I can see the concern with (stupid) people thinking this might be a self-braking car, just like how some morons thought that putting cruise control on meant that a vehicle would drive itself, then sued the manufacturer when they crashed after they left the driving seat of their RV to make a cup of coffee in the back.

People like that are pretty rare though, and most will realise that this system is really just a form of assisted braking, for when someone's concentration lapses for a second and they wouldn't have applied the brakes hard enough in time to avoid a shunt. It should never be advertised as a substitute for human action.

Quote from (Fire_Kame;)

Someone commented on the video that "this car is not ready." Ready for what?

It's not ready because it can't do what it advertises. I don't think people saw this and said "oh great, I'm going to have to continue braking by myself and what-not"; I think people saw this and thought that it wasn't fair for them to advertise a system that doesn't always work. I do not think anyone with half a brain would ever leave any braking up to the computer system instead of doing it manually. Although--by having a system like this--they are setting themselves up for being sued if people get in collisions and the system malfunctions.

I think it's not bad at all that the system malfunctioned, it gives the engineers a chance to further improve the system.

Cars were meant to take people from place to place, as fast as possible, as safe as possible and in recent years, as most efficient as possible. This new system that Volvo is working on implementing is one of the many steps towards achieving a better transportation system for us. Imagine a car where all you'd have to do was input the location which you want to go to and push start? You'd sit back, relax, and let the car do the driving. You could do some work, take a nap, socialize, play some games and a whole bunch of stuff. You'd also be saving time, because the control system of the car is so advanced, it's capable of easily going at 120 mph with a 99.99% safety rating. Oh, and it's much more efficient than any human driver out there, so in a per-mile basis, it's cheaper.

We are getting much closer to this car than we actually think. Any of you seen those new luxury cars like Mercedez-Benz and Lexus that park themselves? Cruise-Control is also one such form of automatic control. I can viably see in the near future a braking system controlled by RADAR. Just send the pulses and calculate the speed differential and distance between your vehicle and the obstacle in front of you. If at the current speed you will go under a safe distance, then the brake will apply pressure and the car will slow down. Depending on the speed and distance, you will get different pressures to slow the car down slowly or very fast. Such a system wouldn't be too hard to implement, the only major problem I can see is with calibrating the RADAR system to only detect viable obstacles, like cars, concrete structures and pedestrians for example. Also the receiver would have to have a controlled filter system to filter our unwanted signals. In essence, such a braking system would take a bit of work to do, but I think we easily have to technology to do it and we'd have a lot less crashes.

There are a number of obstacles to this, the most obvious one being cost.

Yes, and this is why we only see automatic parallel parking only in luxury cars. I'd say that at least for this kind of system, the manufacturing process isn't costly. My University has a small manufacturing factory in which we make PCB for a class we take an an elective. We make some kind of either a wireless bone density measure-er or something that helps regenerate the bones via electromagnetic waves, I'm not entirely sure on it's specifics, but each finished product has a retail price of around $4000. We only make the green PCB cards, and they are quite cheap to make. In terms of labor, machinery running costs and such, running at full capacity, I think each card cost around $2 to make, maybe even less. But do remember that we only work on making the PCB using machinery that does most of the work automatically, we just make sure everything in running properly, make sure there's a good QA and fix any minor problem that may rise up. What we do know is that whenever we lose components or a card, we have to make sure we can fix it, do anything we can to not have to throw them away, so that gives us a rough idea how much these materials cost.

If material costs can come down, we can easily see such a system implemented into every new car.

Quote from BeeR_KeG

Yes, and this is why we only see automatic parallel parking only in luxury cars. I'd say that at least for this kind of system, the manufacturing process isn't costly. My University has a small manufacturing factory in which we make PCB for a class we take an an elective. We make some kind of either a wireless bone density measure-er or something that helps regenerate the bones via electromagnetic waves, I'm not entirely sure on it's specifics, but each finished product has a retail price of around $4000. We only make the green PCB cards, and they are quite cheap to make. In terms of labor, machinery running costs and such, running at full capacity, I think each card cost around $2 to make, maybe even less. But do remember that we only work on making the PCB using machinery that does most of the work automatically, we just make sure everything in running properly, make sure there's a good QA and fix any minor problem that may rise up. What we do know is that whenever we lose components or a card, we have to make sure we can fix it, do anything we can to not have to throw them away, so that gives us a rough idea how much these materials cost.

If material costs can come down, we can easily see such a system implemented into every new car.

Well, that's how it works. At first the newer systems are only implemented into the luxury cars, until eventually they are put into all newer cars. Take wireless lock/unlock remote for example. Abs brakes are a good example too.

Quote from CaptainWill

There are a number of obstacles to this, the most obvious one being cost.

That being said, there are a variety of pushes behind radar technology in cars. One is positive, because we are becoming more concerned with car safety (look at the increase in regulations, at least in the states). However, with that has come poorer gas mileage because cars are just so heavy now. My boyfriend's deathtrap CRX gets forty miles to the gallon in the city, and he doesn't hyper mile. But there are no airbags. Soooo that being said, yes car companies might be willing to put in radar, but the bigger concern right now is mileage and enviornmental impact that comes with heavier safer cars...thus society is pushing for better gas mileage or alternative fuel. The cry for better mileage right now is louder than that for safety.

I think you'd like this car, it goes 100 kilometers on just 1L of fuel.
http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/top-vw-1-liter-car.htm

Using this kind of approach, more efficient could be safer. It's not the same crashing a 1000 kg car going at 60 mph than a 250 kg car at 60 mph. The materials on each type of car should have equal strength, but since on the lighter version there is less inertia, there is less energy in the crash and less chance of severe injury. I think it'd be like the Formula 1 crashes. You see these guys crash at 200 mph and walk out like if it was nothing, sure the car pretty much disintegrates but the roll-cage is kept intact which could be similar to the VW-1L car crashing.

Quote from (Fire_Kame;)

But I think as a result, technology like this - like most technology - has made us lazy.

Those who create this technology have to have a certain degree of non-laziness to get their technology out to the lazy ones. I should become one of those people in the game development industry, fueling y'all lazers ;D

I agree... ( This is fairly new technology, and obv most cars still do not have it )
I also understand where the public is coming from. If the company says their car has a a feature that will stop itself before an accident... well then the car should be able to do this.
They should of explained it better.