[jlsoaz]

Hi - I'm getting used to the Volt beeping at me if I fracture a white line or two on the side of the road. The other night around dusk on a 35 mph speed limit neighborhood two-way road it beeped and I thought it was just bugging me, and then from around a slight bend came a fast-moving vehicle and a police car right behind it with lights flashing. This happened quickly so I'm not sure of some things, but I'll estimate about 50-70 mph.

My question is whether the Volt detected this chase (or is capable of doing so) and, further, whether it's capable of detecting it around a bend.

Yes, it might have been beeping at me for some plain old coloring-slightly-outside-the-lines, but I couldn't help but marvel at the technology if it was actually giving me a valuable brief heads-up that a bit of danger was coming my way.

 

[TSquare]

My question is whether the Volt detected this chase (or is capable of doing so) and, further, whether it's capable of detecting it around a bend.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: No. No. No.

 

[Steverino]

Think about it. How would it detect a police car or any car around the bend or behind a building? Camera? No. Radar? No.

 

[Sean-a-Tron]

Gen 1 Volt's sensor system is pretty primitive, there's no way it saw that coming. I don't think even Tesla's system could detect that.

 

[jlsoaz]

Gen 1 Volt's sensor system is pretty primitive, there's no way it saw that coming. I don't think even Tesla's system could detect that.

Ok, thanks.

 

[canehdian]

Think about it. How would it detect a police car or any car around the bend or behind a building? Camera? No. Radar? No.

Theoretically, it could be done via onstar broadcasting to all vehicles in the path (they know GPS of the police car and GPS of the public vehicles). But they're definitely not sophisticated enough to do such a thing (today, at least). It would also require the police to signal 'the overlords' to do so.

In a future with V2V communication, assuming a decent traffic density, other cars could signal ahead/back down the line.
Again, not today.

 

[Rickoshay]

When rounding a curve the camera sees the oncoming traffic as being in your lane. Hence the warning. I drive a canyon road on my daily commute and when conditions are right I get the beep beep. The system does not warn of an oncoming high speed chase. How would it know?
I will add that I LOVE this feature! It has saved my butt more than once. I do turn off the lane change warning though. It is annoying when I skirt the painted line to get a better angle of attack on the next curve.

2014 Volt Premium - Safety pkg 1 and 2, Navigation

 

[Steverino]

When rounding a curve the camera sees the oncoming traffic as being in your lane. Hence the warning.

The OP said the beep occurred before the other car came around the bend. I suppose they could be mistaken, or it's like those accident reports you sometimes see quoted, "An invisible car car out of nowhere, hit my car and disappeared."

Theoretically, it could be done via onstar broadcasting to all vehicles in the path

Perhaps this is something that will be added to AV's, though I'm not clear what benefit it would serve.

 

[canehdian]

Perhaps this is something that will be added to AV's, though I'm not clear what benefit it would serve.

It would ensure a clear path for the emergency vehicles and ensure the safety of other vehicles as they're clear of the road (assuming they listened to the warning and pulled over)
Same thing that's supposed to happen now, but relies on the driver (or AV computer) actually seeing the flashing lights and pulling over.
Instead, you'd get a notice before you can even see it, giving more time to clear the road.

 

[JoeReal]

Think about it. How would it detect a police car or any car around the bend or behind a building? Camera? No. Radar? No.

It may have detected the bend. In my case, it also detects a sudden slope or a big hump, then it beeps. Also dependent on your speed. When I was backing out of the driveway, and then go forward and stepped on it, lots of beeps as there's a trashcan on the side as Volt concludes I'm going to hit it. Normally if I go slow going forward from reverse, and the trash can is also there, no beeps.

Also when turning in multi-lanes, you can encounter some beeps if you're in the inner turn and there's cars in the outer turn.

 

[voltage_fluctuation]

The detection in volt is based on image processing, not radar/lidar based. Image processing can be buggy. I am a recent owner of gen1 volt, and found that you do get a few false positives, I hope it doesn't give any false negatives. I have tried to be within <1s of the vehicle in front and the beeps did not come (even though I set the max distance)

 

[Aseras]

Mine beeped at everything. It didn't understand shadows, old pavement vs new pavement. Paved medians where the road forked and the lines split or potholes, bends or guardrails. Mine would also frequently alert in the rain or when going down a dirt road.

It uses the camera for lane guidance and the high frequency sound sensors in the bumper for collision detection/warning.

There's a part in the manual about washing the sensors and keeping them dirt free to be accurate. With my 13 mile commute I'd get at least 1-2 false alerts about an impending collision with nothing, and 5-6 beeps for going out of a lane simple because of one of the reasons above.

The system is not very refined. The only place it works well is on the interstate, which my volt rarely went.

 

[!arry4pyro]

Highly unlikely, but the description of events could have happened if the Volt and one of the cars in the chase was equipped with vehicle-to-vehicle technology.