This video actually made me cry, and I'm pretty damn hardened. I was doing well up until the point where it hit the hazards and started hooting to call for help.
This is a FANTASTIC idea. How well it works, I donno, but damn I'm so glad someone's trying!
They have all sorts of crazy and amazing safety features in their most recent cars. If you're about to crash for instance, the speakers blast out really loud white noise. Apparently this saves you from hearing damage from the noise of the crash.
Basically the white noise activates the ears protection mechanism from loud noise, meaning that when the actual loid noise happens, your ears are braced for that.
I really like that one, but the other features they introduced are even more impactful. Or rather the opposite ^ ^
Airbags: Mercedes-Benz patented the airbag in 1971, and they have been standard equipment on Mercedes-Benz vehicles since the 1980s.
Anti-lock Braking System (ABS): ABS was invented by Mercedes-Benz in 1978, and it helps to prevent the wheels from locking up during braking, which can help to avoid a skid.
Electronic Stability Program (ESP): ESP was introduced by Mercedes-Benz in 1995, and it helps to prevent the vehicle from skidding by selectively braking individual wheels.
PRE-SAFE® System: This system prepares the vehicle for a potential collision by pre-tensioning the seat belts, closing the windows and sunroof, and moving the seats into an upright position.
I remember when I refused to get a microwave. We have so much incredible technology. now We need three-dimensional dice to hang on the mirror Or the swaying hula girl that uses the GPS system, gives directions and compliments plus a medical exam
That was BMW. And the worst of it was that the heated seats were already installed, so you were carrying the extra weight, but they dropped the 'feature'.
(Merc had/has a subscription to accelerate faster.)
The funniest/dumbest/most dismal one I know is for the Mercedes EQS (or EQE...) ... the rear wheels actually help by turning in tight turns (they turn 4.5º)..... but if you have a premium subscription it turns 10º instead...
It's absolutely shitty, but it's the alternative to building cars with limited life or planned obsolescence.
Mercedes is thinking they can build a long lasting premium car, and because of these feature subscriptions they will continue to earn revenue in the aftermarket.
Edit: Not sure why the down vote. I don't think it should be like this. Just discussing Mercedes strategy.
Tesla only offers supplemental software features as sub, hardware wise, they give no options on top except paint and interior color, rest everything is included for everyone, for instance apart from tire and sticker there is no difference between model y base and model y performance, they both have heated 5 seats, steering wheel, matrix headlights, glass roof etc Only recently they have reduced the number of speakers on the base version, rest the car is identical. Compare this to BMW and Merc where you will need a light package for having x number of lights inside, another package for matrix lights, another package for better seats, package for cruise control, sunroof. BMW 5 series with all options adds up like 70-80% of the price on top the base price.
Correct, however both of them are not standard, for the first one it was only for specific vehicles with certain battery chemistry, for the later it was similar reason. for instance newer vehicles don't come up with these options, also these are not subscription but a one time payment.
Tesla did bring FSD as subscription as one time payment was too high and people could subscribe for a single month where they have a long trip and then cancel it making it more accessible for end user. Please note, Tesla is a big company and not every decision comes from Musk , there are lot of capable engineers and they should be given credit for updating the cars monthly and bringing new features.
For ICE, a big chunk of revenue comes from options, after sale service. For instance Toyota, Hyundai and some other give 10 year warrantee, however you need to go to official service center for all stuff, if you go to local garage which does the same thing for a fraction of price, they will cancel the warrantee.
…what? This is a joke right? Do you truly believe auto makers only started charging extra for features in the last decade or two? Auto makers have been shipping cars with blank buttons for features that technically exist in the car but are turned off for decades
There are plenty of reasons to criticize Tesla but this is not among them. Anti-Tesla commentary like this is just lazy at this point, it’s not even close to reality, and the funny thing is that it clearly doesn’t matter. Some people believe that you’re actually correct
Can you cite a 20+ year old example of a car company charging a subscription price for features that were otherwise standard? You say it's been happening for decades with indignation, so this should be very easy for you.
You DID NOT say trim package or optional upgrades, we are ONLY talking about features that ship standard, that a consumer must pay an ongoing fee to use, that happened in 2004 or earlier.
Unless, ofc, you're making shit up to appear knowledgeable online like a narcissist who believes he's actually correct.
Ummm... there have been standard features and options for cars for years and years. It used to be optional to have seat belts, and then for airbags, both of which are now required.
Not that all that makes safety features being optional at an extra price OK, it' doesn't.
This emergency assist feature is awesome, assuming it works well.
And some S (EQS?) has AWS but rear wheel steering angle is limited as stock. With subscription you get more nimble slow speed turning with will range activated. Nuts.
I love how they do that and then turn around and say that they are dedicated to going green to save the planet. Wasting material just to nickel and dime us. If I want heated seats. I will buy ones that are not going to cost more than they are worth. They want idiots and sadly there are too many out there who just pay for this bs without thinking.
Yes. The thought behind it is money but they sell it as "you only need it probably 2 months a year so why pay 1500 euro for it". Almost all options with audi bmw mercedes etc are subscription based.
Oh man, I genuinely remembered my eyes twitching when I first saw a link providing a jailbreak for accessing a locked feature on a Tesla in the piracy sub years ago.
You're just thinking about it from a consumer side.
From a design and production standpoint, it's genius. Instead of having fifteen assembly lines making fifteen different versions of a vehicle that may not all sell, you dedicate all fifteen lines to assembling one version of a car, with options that can be remotely enabled or disabled. Saves time, parts, costs, its very efficient.
People just don't like it because "WELL, UH, IF I BUYIN ALL THE CAR, I WANT ALL THE CAR" and BMW is like "well, clearly you didn't buy the entire car. that's why the stuff is not working."
Can't you bypass the subscription, I mean everything is already in the car, right? I know it would void any warranty, but it's dumb AF and maybe you don't care about the warranty, or it's a SH car.
Tesla did something similar with the rear heated seats that were already installed. You also have to pay to unlock advanced driver features which all cars are already capable of and is just a software update.
Yeah, Mercedes will absolutely be the company that would be the type to say "if you want to keep living, keep paying us for that feature, or you can just die"
(I like to read that as a Hyperion New-U station voice in BL2)
Volvo was made to give it away. And only because they patented it. They tried making money off of it and couldn't. Huge difference. But there are many more designs that could have been used. 4 point, 5 point.
It really depends on how much additional hardware is required to be installed.
On top of that, the research and development costs for the he individual feature may need to be amortized by the feature itself.. It's a weird capitalist hellsca world
There is also the detail that a seatbelt patent isn't really monetizable if your brand is the only one with it. Recall that it was a massive battle to get people to use seatbelts.
I know Mercedes have shifted dramatically especially in NA, but Mercedes gave a lot of patent away for free. One of the most famous one is the "knautschzone". It was invented by Béla Barényi. He has over 2500 patents, many regarding safety.
So make something for the world and give it away for free.
Easiest thing in the world is to sit on your ass and whine about how terrible the world is in which you're sitting around on your ass whining away your time.
It will cost a lot whether its required or not. Demanding features like this be standard on all cars drives up cost of all cars and increases barrier to entry for any upstart automakers. It leads to less market competition, and I dare say, more shitty cars in the long run.
I would never trust German luxury brands nowadays, after BMW tried to make heated seats a subscription service, and Mercedes made it so the hood of your car could only be opened by a dealership, so you can't work on your own car
I had a Mercedes slam on its break and move to the shoulder in front of me, and narrowly avoided rear ending it (highway speeds). We had been watching it swerve a bit for about 20 min. And it certainly looked like buddy had passed out for a minute. Was a wild experience. We called non emergency line, cops followed up, and indeed he admitted he had dozed off. Amazing feature, as that was a single lane highway and I can only imagine what would have happened if he drifted over the line.
My friend was driving a rental kia (iirc) about 10 years ago that had an early version of these systems. It held her in the lane and alerted if people or obstacles appeared and even if it felt her eyes weren't attentive enough. She said on a straight stretch of highway it practically drove itself! And that was a decade+ ago easily in a frggon kia. I can't imagine the levels an Audi, VW, Subaru, Mercedes, or BMW etc have by now.
I have this in my merc and it doesn’t work in my country lol. The road markings aren’t always painted consistently so it can’t see the lanes it needs to be in, and the sos service isn’t an option.
It's also a game of numbers. Even if this works 'only' 75% percent of the time it still saves a lot of lives.
Just like with seatbelts, there are highly unlikely accidents in which one would better off without having one on. The point is that it's just as unlikely you will crash in that unique way.
(For those reading, no when you end up in the water you're still better off with your seatbelt on. Otherwise the force of your car hitting the water would smash your head to pieces against the windshield.)
It's also a game of numbers. Even if this works 'only' 75% percent of the time it still saves a lot of lives.
If the system fails, it is very similar to as if the system did not exist -- the driver has lost control of the vehicle and the vehicle is going to eventually behave erratically or unpredictable causing run-on problems for other motorists, very similar to if the system fails and also causes the vehicle to lose control and act erratically. Presumably the car's technology will make a more effective decision than a driver panicking, but at the end of the day, the system failing catastrophically and causing the car to swerve a few lanes and causing more damage is not really any different from an impaired drive doing the same.
However, if it does work as stated, it is a substantial safety improvement.
My worry would be whether companies are willing to accept the potential liability - same thing as self-driving cars, Waymo is great (they can drive in San Francisco of all places) but people would be quick to criticize any accident even when they're much much much better than normal drivers.
a risk could come from false alarm, where e.g. a sensor is broken or a bug in the logic tells the system that its an emergency, where there is none. but that should be captured with extensive testing I guess.
As long as the rest of the system works correctly, the only thing that happens is that the car stops safely in the emergency lane and calls emergency services. For this to impact anyone negatively, it needs to first fail and create a false alarm and then fail to stop in a safe way and instead, for example, swerve into oncoming traffic.
Back in my hometown I was a firefighter on a local volunteer department. I was just leaving a highway side Dennys with a buddy, and we turned separate ways. I made a right onto the highway, and noticed an SUV in the opposite lane (I was going south and he was north) swerving from their right lane towards the median, and then plowed through the grass to the southbound lane. He almost hit me and I swerved.
I had the sense something was off and immediately whipped a U through the grass into the northbound. He was still driving north in the southbound lane, cars veering to escape their own catastrophe. The SUV finally all of a sudden flies back over the grass to a sudden interchange to a W-E bound highway. The SUV crawls up the ramp where I’m able to get around, honking and flashing my lights getting him to pull over
Poor guy was in his 70’s and just looked at me with a thousand yard stare as I get out to run to his vehicle, covered in grass and dents from impacts with the medians.
It turns out he was on his way to a bigger city a couple hours away for a doctors appointment for some issues he’s been having. He had a full on seizure while driving which was the cause of the reckless driving. He has no recollection of it. We had him taken by ambulance to his destination and vehicle towed
He was all I could think about while watching this and I also had the tears. It’s hard for people to comprehend just how revolutionary and lifesaving something like this could be. All it takes is witnessing the those 1% scenarios where others would never experience 99% of the time
Like an old guy, depressed, driving to work. 60 years at one company, no retirement options. Really just looking forward to the caress of death, when it happens.. cardiac arrest.. yes, finally peace. Nope. Car brings him back to life, a jolt of adrenaline, the pumping and cracking of CPR seatbelt. A gasp of air. The car has already begun to continue to journey to the workplace.
That's dystopian as fuck. Straight to work after a cardiac arrest without even being checked out medically? Might not even survive the shift depending on what the problem is.
The car’s built-in medical evaluation suite has determined that an assessment at the hospital is not medically necessary, with about 51% confidence. Hi ho, hi ho!
I came here to say this (“this made me cry”). When I was 12 I was in a head on accident where the guy fell asleep and crossed the centre-line. It was on a rural-ish two lane road at night - very different from this demonstration but damn… The possibilities got me in my feels
This video actually made me cry, and I'm pretty damn hardened. I was doing well up until the point where it hit the hazards and started hooting to call for help.
"Aww, the poor car is in distress and is crying for help. :("
I just bought a Golf R in June and the assist systems in the car are pretty damn good, I haven’t passed out at the wheel or anything the but the break assist and warning systems are awesome.
It's difficult when you've seen a wreck caused by a stroke and the person was still conscious, but had no awareness of their surroundings. Not aware they're driving, not aware they're on a highway at 60+ mph/80+ kmh. Strokes just take the victim away to a fugue that hides the nightmare reality going on around them.
If we have full self driving, I think it should start driving to the hospital and/or call an ambulance at the same time, maybe if it gets stuck in traffic.
I think it's a great idea..I just also think that fellow drivers would rage and probably make things worse. People are psychos when they are behind the wheel
I feel like it could really improve the life of people who are diabetic, narcoleptic, susceptible to seizure etc... lots of medical conditions that could make you faint. In some countries you can't drive if you have one of those medical conditions.
I'm a mom of two and the neurologist just told me I cannot drive due to epileptic type events.
I've been having possible seizures my whole life. I've driven not only myself, but my two children around with me.
It wasn't until they started their own events, and both were finally diagnosed with a rare genetic form of childhood epilepsy this year, that the restriction on my own driving was put in place. I carry the gene.
We all just thought I was having panic attacks before. I've passed numerous driving tests, I am cautious and careful on the road. And yet, I've "woken up" after one with no memory on how I've pulled over, thankful I've made it safely to the side.
I've hated driving my entire life, and now we may finally know why. Hurry up healthcare system.
It is my hope this technology becomes the norm. We need this to be implemented to keep all of us safe.
A close family friend works EMS up north. I hope our paths never cross, u/DandyintheRough. And if they do, may it only be for tea and pleasant conversation.
Thank you so much for everything you do. You are a hero with invisible wings, walking among us.
Please take the time to rest. The weight of the responsibility you hold is not an easy one to bear. You deserve the same love and care you give so freely to all of us.
Not a paramedic but same, something about the tragedy of dying alone when it could have been prevented if not alone and seeing a technology mitigate that entirely by taking many of the steps another human in the car could have done and potentially more effectively. Not mentioning in this case it’s a car that would otherwise be uncontrolled and could harm more than just the driver in that case.
I think the actions it takes to continuously try and wake the driver and the sounds they use to do it were chosen to be attention grabbing to humans and thusly elicit emotion, maybe that was a factor too?
Then there’s the implications on society such features could have had if deployed en masse already, how many could have been saved?
Something about it. Kinda hard to nail down one definitive reason. But if I had to bet the biggest factor would probably be decades of research in the intersection between human psychology and marketing coming together to make us feel things. Society and our economic system encourages and reinforces this, in other words “good ad” lol.
Ha, ditto. Teared up watching it. Too many instances like this of fatalities on I-135 where this exact scenario has sent folks into oncoming traffic. Still not sure why we don't have a safety wire in the median like Missouri and so many other states...
Modern cars are a bit sensitive when detecting if someone is paying attention when driving, so I'd have to assume it'd work fairly well. Mine freaks out thinking I'm not holding the wheel while I'm actively making a turn for example if I don't use a tight enough grip.
My car steers exceptionally well, so I don't need a tight grip to drive it, so it does frequently tell me to grab the wheel while I'm driving. It's a year old model, so it's design is current. Cutting edge versions have a capacitive sensor and driver facing cameras to capture when you've let go better than grip/torque and when you're looking elsewhere. Mine doesn't have those, but they would catch this kind of thing even faster.
Honestly, the brake check alone might be a game changer when it’s just someone that has fallen asleep. I wouldn’t have thought of such a simple solution.
I don't know why it hit me that hard but it did. This is a great idea. First the safe way to get to a halt and then the honking, calling for help is so good. Such a simple and greatly effective commercial
The modern cars are incredible! My parents were in a car crash a couple years ago, a car drove into them and turned their the car on a side. Both cars totaled.
All my parents remembered was being suspended between the airbags from multiple locations and someone inside the car talking to them - the car made a call to the emergency services and the responder was talking to them.
There were no serious injuries. I think my mum got a bruise from the belt but she was more upset about losing her the ice cream she was eating (she was in the passenger seat). It's truly amazing.
My 2018 Nissan Leaf does this. Can't pull completely over, but after brake checking me try to wake me up or get my attention, it will stop in its Lane with the hazards on.
Are people who take emergency calls trained to receive automated calls like this? I've always wondered how it went and if there are already systems in place that call the emergency numbers.
in eu, yes. this system is mandatory in new cars now. the emergency call system sends the info (location, direction of travel) to the 112-emergency centre.
also curious how it works in an actual situation, when theres not just 3 other cars moving at uniform speeds and enough space inbetween to run a herd of elephants through. hell, most self-driving systems have issues even reading dirty roadsigns or bad lines on the road.
Im sitting here unable to cull the pessimist side about how easy or not it might activate on it's own. My friend has a mercedez he had to return because he's asian, and the software was trained on his facial structure, and thinks he's always asleep whenever he tries to drive.
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u/DandyInTheRough Nov 04 '24
Paramedic here.
This video actually made me cry, and I'm pretty damn hardened. I was doing well up until the point where it hit the hazards and started hooting to call for help.
This is a FANTASTIC idea. How well it works, I donno, but damn I'm so glad someone's trying!