Ford announced today that the 2011 Explorer, which is due out late this year, will be equipped standard with an electronic system that will automatically slow the vehicle down in corners.
Like the traction and stability control systems already common on modern vehicles, the new system, called Curve Control, can cut throttle and automatically apply brakes to slow the crossover by 10 mph in a single second as a preemtive safety measure. Stability control, which acts to force a vehicle back on its intended path more than slow it down, remains part of the phalanx of safety gizmos on the Explorer. In fact, the Curve Control system uses the same sensors (steering angle, yaw rate, etc) as does the stability control system. It is only a matter of some computer code.The new crossover will also be offered with inflatable rear seat belts.
Curve Control uses four-wheel differential braking to reduce understeer by lowering vehicle speed. The differential part means that the heavily loaded outside wheels get a greater dose of braking. Typically, a stability control system would activate later in the going and apply only a single brake in an understeer situation to try to right the vehicle. Also, as you can see from the above illustration, vehicles without Curve Control are large and eerily spectral compared to vehicles with the system.
Ford says that by 2015 90 percent of its pickups, SUVs and vans will incorporate the system. This relinquished control would be more alarming to us were it not for the fact that a driver can de-activate the system should they like and/or if it were going on any vehicle that we as enthusiast's care one whit about driving.
We're less worried about the slow (or quick) erosion of driving skill to automated systems than wondering why if Ford can save bad drivers preemptively from their own stupidity why the company can't develop a system that can prevent me from saying something to my passenger/wife that is immediately regrettable or from singing along to the falsetto portions of songs that come on the car radio.
felonious says:
02:03 PM, 06/28/10
Ah Pund, does your wit know no bounds? I pity those who skip this article thinking it's a standard dry press release.
I still curse you in the caption contests, though.
roadburner says:
03:28 PM, 06/28/10
Wow, soon we'll be able to buy a vehicle that can automatically mimic the driving style of a septuagenarian Buick owner.
Talk about the answer to a question nobody asked...
hybris says:
03:40 PM, 06/28/10
"automatically apply brakes to slow the crossover"
I think the Ford guy in me just took a punch to the face.
Beyond that point so long as I can turn stuff like this off on my future truck PERMANENTLY (as in I don't have to kill it every time I start the truck) I can live with it.
Its nice that the less skilled drivers are safer and being able to turn these things off just mean there is another mark of there being a more skilled driver out there.
rick8365 says:
04:15 PM, 06/28/10
"Also, as you can see from the above illustration" .........
I'll tell you what I see....a transversely mounted engine in an Explorer, sorry, this brings a tear to me eye.
alman08 says:
07:22 PM, 06/28/10
Excellent idea! I have seen way too many bozos out there driving high center gravity vehicles like sport cars. These cars aren't meant to be driven that way. And when things went south, they blamed on the tires, stuck this and that and whatever but their own brains (probably so because they don't have brains??).
brn says:
10:53 PM, 06/28/10
Drove my SUV on Highway 1 from Ely, MN to the North Shore today. That's one heck of a windy road. Such a feature would have been nice.
Btw: Not windy in the way that it would be fun with a car that can handle the twisties. It's difficult to see through the turns, so you wouldn't want to go fast, no matter what you drive.
lostboyz says:
04:25 AM, 06/29/10
Not a bad idea. Its not much different than traction control, during normal driving it will come in handy, and you can turn it off when you want to have some fun. It also sounds like it will be a fairly smart system since it looks speed, steering angle, and yaw so it will only kick in when you underestimated a turn and it can safely correct it.
kevm14 says:
06:25 AM, 06/29/10
Why is better driver training considered too expensive or political suicide to push but ridiculous "safety" systems are perfectly ok? I really believe there is a slow erosion of driver skill, and systems like this are to blame. I do like ABS and stability control though I can admit that even those systems have contributed to decreased driver skill over time. Decreased accidents, yeah. But I really believe upfront driver training (strict, expensive, etc.) is the real answer.
210delray says:
08:01 AM, 06/29/10
We haven't figured out the magic formula of the right kind of training to keep drivers from crashing. It's more about attitude than knowledge or skill anyway: drivers deliberately take unnecessary risks all the time.
roadburner says:
09:08 AM, 06/29/10
"I really believe there is a slow erosion of driver skill, and systems like this are to blame. I do like ABS and stability control though I can admit that even those systems have contributed to decreased driver skill over time. Decreased accidents, yeah. But I really believe upfront driver training (strict, expensive, etc.) is the real answer."
I agree. I couldn't believe it the first time I heard someone say that they couldn't own a RWD drive car because they needed to be able to drive in the rain. The American driving public is being dumbed-down to an incredible extent.
carraway says:
10:49 AM, 06/29/10
I'm convinced that the auto-correcting spell check has caused most people to never type words like "receive" correctly. I'm also convinced that many people who drive vehicles with these systems will never learn the basic physics of getting a car around a set of corners without electronic help. I'm also thinking that the increase in systems like this, along with the reported rising interest in classic cars is going to create some tragedy when people discover, say, lift-throttle oversteer with nothing to correct it but you (well, and physics, ditches, trees). At least until some regulators decide no one is allowed to drive without those systems.
csubowtie says:
11:15 AM, 06/29/10
Yep, it gets scarier and scarier to buy a new car these days. They build in awesome power, and then build in systems to completely take away any driver responsibility. I believe our world has gotten too safe for it's own good. I understand it is sad whenever we lose somebody, but lets look at the overall good of the speicies. Nature has it's ways of weeding out the bad crops, but we as people find new ways to not only protect them, but to drag the rest down to their levels. I am all for the better driver training. If people knew how to properly drive a car, they would know how to handle the situtation themselves, and even more importantly, they wouldn't get into those situations in the first place.
roadburner says:
01:04 PM, 06/29/10
"I believe our world has gotten too safe for it's own good. I understand it is sad whenever we lose somebody, but lets look at the overall good of the species. Nature has it's ways of weeding out the bad crops, but we as people find new ways to not only protect them, but to drag the rest down to their levels."
Agreed; nothing good ever comes from tampering with the law of natural selection.
crowb says:
01:31 PM, 06/29/10
+1 to Mr. Pund. Very funny. I love it when you guys insert a little levity. Good stuff.
brn says:
05:33 PM, 06/29/10
technophobes
:)
kevm14 says:
10:13 AM, 06/30/10
"Agreed; nothing good ever comes from tampering with the law of natural selection."
Yup. But it is almost impossible to explain this to anyone without sounding insensitive, or worse. I was an 80s baby and even for me, the amount of "safe yourself from yourself" stuff out there today is STAGGERING, from products to laws and policy to attitudes. Personal responsibility, please....
csubowtie says:
10:32 AM, 06/30/10
As we were driving home last night, my wife, who could care less about performance in a car, or cars in genereal, out of the blue tells me she heard about this and how appalled she was. Apparently she heard about it on some radio show.
roadburner says:
07:23 PM, 06/30/10
"Personal responsibility, please...."
Nah, it's always someone else's fault- so you hire an ambulance chasing shyster to collect what you "deserve"...