Volkswagen has released a car that can steer by itself if the driver is distracted or affected by fatigue.
The new Passat medium size car, which went on sale in Europe this week before arriving in Australian showrooms early next year, has a "lane assistance" system that will keep the steering of the car on course if it senses you're about to drive off the road or out of your lane.
Other car makers have technology that sounds an alarm when the car starts to wander, but Volkswagen claims it's the first company to offer a system that also steers. We would make the counterclaim that Honda, in Europe, is actually the first to offer such a system -- and the Carsales Network sampled it earlier in the year, driving an Accord Tourer. Mercedes-Benz has also introduced a similar system, but that relies on dragging the car back into the lane by applying selective braking pressure on one wheel at the rear of the car.
"We know other car makers have a sound warning for lane assistance, but we believe our steering input is a world first," Ingo Meinke, the Volkswagen engineer responsible for developing the system, told the Carsales Network at the launch of the new Passat in Barcelona overnight.
"For the new Passat we made many refinements, including making the intervention very gentle so as to not surprise the driver."
A camera in the windscreen constantly scans the road ahead looking for lane markings. If the car wanders from the lane without the indicators being applied, it will intervene.
However, the technology is not fail-safe. It only works above 65km/h in ideal conditions. In a sample of the technology on a test drive, the system intervened on only one out of every four attempts to trigger the steering control.
The system can be adversely affected by shadows on the road, faint line markings and other traffic.
"For sure it is not perfect, it is an assistance system only," Meinke said. "We do not want to take control away from the driver, rather it is there in case of emergency and the chance we may prevent a collision."
The system takes control of the steering for up to 8 to 10 seconds until the driver regains control of the car.
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