Volvo has just announced that there are now one million of their cars fitted with AEB (autonomous emergency braking) on the road and for most of them (aside from XC90 buyers), the system actually came as standard, otherwise the psychological milestone number would have been reached much later.

Nevertheless, facts and figures are absolute in their meaning, and this is genuinely an achievement, which goes some way to support the Swedes’ commitment to not have a single person die in any of their cars after 2020.

Called City Safety, Volvo’s proprietary system can stop the vehicle automatically if an obstacle of any kind is detected. Furthermore, Cyclist Detection has been integrated into the system, first warning the driver, and then, if the speed difference is greater than 33 km/h (20mph) and the impact is deemed imminent, brakes will come on hard.

Nowadays, a fully-autonomous car that works well and is safe to operate doesn’t seem like a far-fetched idea at all, and Volvo is among those leading the way in its pursuit. We are curious though to see their new autonomous parking system put to the test in unscripted real world conditions, once development work on it is completed, and according to their engineers, it will happen “sooner rather than later.”

By Andrei Nedelea

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