A new future for European cars is coming, and it starts with vehicle safety
When you picture the future of road transportation, what do you see? Maybe you see yourself in the driver’s seat with your laptop out, catching up on emails as your car delivers you to work with ease? It feels like a distant future, but the reality is that fully-automated vehicles won’t arrive in our lives as a single device or model that will one day be ready and rolling off the lot. Rather, they’ll creep up on us as a system of new inventions that are incrementally applied in novel ways to existing car technology.
In fact, you might already be driving a car of the future – parking sensors, blind spot detection, autonomous emergency braking systems and other technological advances are now standard features on many vehicles. Each of these is a small advance towards a fully-automated future and the common theme across each one of these is: safety.
European cars must be built with Speed Assistance by 2022
In a significant nod to the safety-focused future of road transport, the European Commission recently approved a suite of legislation that will make a range of new and existing safety features mandatory in all new vehicles sold in Europe from May 2022. The legislation – which is due to be ratified in September 2019 – marks a milestone on the journey of advancing technology. From 2022, all new vehicles sold in Europe must have:
- Lane-departure warning systems
- Advanced autonomous emergency braking
- Alcohol interlock compatibility
- Data-recording black boxes; and
- Intelligent speed-limiters (also known as ‘speed assistance’)
Intelligent speed-limiters have attracted the most attention from legislators, manufacturers, driver-advocacy groups and the media, and have been put forward as a significant step forward in reducing the number of lives lost in traffic accidents attributed to excessive speed.
How does a speed limiter work on a car?
Speed-limiters combine input from GPS data and traffic sign recognition cameras to both deliver advice to drivers on current speed limits (usually through a dashboard alert) and limit the speed of the vehicle based on speed zone by limiting the power delivered when the driver attempts to accelerate beyond the limit. Unlike cruise-control, a speed-limiter doesn’t maintain a set speed, rather it prevents the accelerator pedal from having its normal effect once the car reaches the speed limit. But what about overtaking and emergency situations, I hear you ask? Fortunately, the technology is sophisticated enough to allow driver discretion, so you can always override the system when necessary by pressing the accelerator pedal down firmly to the ground.
Some cars have featured adjustable speed-limiters for many years, whereby the driver can manually select a maximum speed. Recent advances in this technology have taken this concept further to integrate machine intelligence – with the vehicle itself making decisions about speed-limitation in response to GPS and camera inputs.
Which European cars will have speed limiters?
All new-model vehicles sold in Europe from May 2022 will have speed-limiters fitted as standard features. Existing-models in production will be required to comply by 2024 – any models sold prior to the enactment of the laws will not have to be retroactively fitted. The United Kingdom has already indicated that it will follow suit, and it is very likely that Australia will adopt similar measures in the near future. Many European cars already have intelligent speed-recognition systems, including models produced by Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Porsche, Bentley, BMW, Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover and Skoda. These manufacturers will simply be evolving their existing systems from recognition-systems to limiting-systems, and we can expect many other manufacturers beyond Europe to follow suit as this technology becomes standard.
Intelligent speed-limiters are just one small advance in towards a safer, and perhaps automated, driving future. And for those of us passionate about driving high-performance and sports vehicles, there’s every chance we might find the value of our precious cars increase as capacity for speed becomes more scarce in future! We love our cars, and we love yours, too. Cox Auto keeps up with all the latest advances and diagnostic technology, so we’re well equipped to keep you moving. We specialise in prestige European cars, providing the same service as any dealership and we won’t void your warranty. Drop in or give us a call today.
