Volkswagen iQ Drive - easier to drive

Predictive cruise control is one of Volkswagen's novelties, but not the only one. On board the updated Passat or Touareg, we will find a whole host of assistants and assistants. Look what.

The automotive world has pursued various goals in recent decades. The emphasis was on safety, computerization, then on the lowest fuel consumption, and now all design forces are concentrated on two areas: electric drives and autonomous driving. Today we will focus on the last solution. For a classic car lover, this means little, but it does not mean that there are no pluses. For the general public, this may be the best solution. There are more and more systems on the market that will become components of computerized vehicle control in the future. But, as it turned out, they are still not without flaws, which, in turn, can slightly delay this future.

Kerunek Tallinn

Volkswagenbefore showing off his new systems, he invited journalists Tallinn University of Technologywhere it was created (regardless of VW) autonomous vehicle design. Of course, this is not the world's first and not the most advanced autonomous vehicle, although it shows the potential of this small but very modern and computerized country.

The vehicle is a minibus that moves around the campus. It can both travel along a given route, stopping at stops (like a bus), and assign and cover a route to a given point (like a taxi). There is no steering wheel, no command center, and it basically shows what real city buses will look like in the future. Yes, in a decade, electric cars without drivers will carry passengers around the cities of the whole world, I'm sure of it.

What about cars? - you ask. Experts draw the same plans, I am very skeptical about such a tight deadline. A visit to the university showed why it is not so easy. Firstly, the Tallinn bus moves in a scanned environment and is stored in the computer's memory. In addition, it has vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-environment communication capabilities, making it easier to move around the city. Without it, recognizing emergency vehicles, certain hazards, or even red lights can be very difficult. Certainly Tesla Advanced Autopilot recognizes the signaling and the color of the lights, but in Europe each country has its own traffic organization system plus specific solutions, for example, green arrow detection.

It is noteworthy that while in Germany some cars can recognize a fairly large set of traffic signs, the system in Poland limits its capabilities to two or three types. And yet the efficiency must be 100% in any case, if the car really has to move independently. Also, like Tesla with its autopilot, most of the self-driving cars tested can drive on the highway, and few of them will be equally comfortable in the urban jungle (the term for self-driving cars is exceptionally adequate). Therefore, before these solutions go into mass production, they must be developed on a global scale so that the car can be used in more than just a select few metropolitan areas of the Western world.

VW iQ: here and now

Let the prediction of the future be left to the fairies, and the solution of the problems of autonomous vehicles to the engineers. The real thing is not so boring. Here and now you can have a nice down to earth car with little future. Volkswagenin order not to bother in our heads, he dumped the entire complex of driving assistance systems in one bag and called iQ drive. We checked what this concept means on new Passat and Touareg vehicles equipped with it.

Tesla lovers can sleep easy. For some time, the cars of this American company will have the most advanced automatic driving system (not to be confused with autonomous). But the giant from Wolfsburg does not cover the pears with ashes and is constantly working on his own solutions. The latest systems, although they have well-known names, have received new features. For a driver who is not interested in details, in practice this means the possibility of automatic driving under certain conditions.

Travel Assist

A small button on the steering wheel activates the cruise control, which maintains a set speed, but can also read road signs or download navigation data to match the speed limit. The distance to the vehicle in front is constantly maintained and the vehicle speed does not exceed 30 km/h at roundabouts. It is enough to keep your hands on the steering wheel, which is monitored by capacitive sensors.

Like the so-called Travel Assist does it work in practice? Very good on the highway, but not new volkswagen passator Touareg they are not yet able to change lanes on their own, overtaking slower vehicles. In suburban traffic, it’s also not bad - adaptation to traffic jams is exemplary, but the accuracy of “guessing” the speed limit still leaves much to be desired. The system in area "30" decided it was outside the built-up area in order to see invisible restrictions in the middle of nowhere. In the city, it is of little use, since it cannot recognize traffic lights, so you have to constantly control driving and, if necessary, brake yourself. This, of course, deactivates the system. We can remove our hands for a moment, the car will cope even with rather sharp turns, but after 15 seconds it will remind us, and if we do not listen, it will eventually stop the car, refusing to continue working. Well, it's still cruise control, although very advanced, and, as you know, they do not work in the city.

Fortunately, in "difficult" conditions for the system, you can set the manual mode and set the speed at which the car should move. The upper limit reaches 210 km / h, which will be appreciated by drivers who often travel on German routes. Manual mode is a big plus, because, probably, in Germany, guessing signs is at a high level, but - as test drives in Estonia showed - this should not be the case in other countries.

This is not the end. In total, among the eighteen systems, we can find at least two more important groups. The first includes all systems that allow avoiding a collision and minimizing its possible consequences. Volkswagen sees everything around, looks out for other vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists and large animals. In the event of an emergency, he takes action. The second group is the entire battery of parking assistants. Who, despite the 360-degree camera and front and rear sensors, still does not feel able to drive the car on their own in tight spaces, the car will help with parallel, perpendicular, front and rear parking and even when unsuccessful attempts are completed or hit the road for us taking care of the integrity of the paintwork.

iQ world

As part of this concept, automatically controlled LED matrix headlights are available on both Volkswagen models. They can be on all the time. After dark, at speeds above 65 km/h, high beams are automatically switched on unless it detects another vehicle in front of it. Forty-four LEDs illuminate the road, cutting out vehicles ahead with minimal delay, illuminating the rest of the road and both shoulders with a long beam of light. This works very smoothly, although the pixelated effect places the LED lights slightly below the xenon blinds.

The best security solution reserved for new volkswagen touareg. This is a thermal night vision camera that works at night and detects people and animals that our eyes may not see. It operates at a distance of 300 meters and is connected to a potential danger warning system.

iQ Drive - summary

There is still a long way to go in terms of autonomous driving. But even with their limitations, Volkswagen's new systems are among the most advanced on our market. They allow you to focus less on the road, but do not yet give control into the hands of the computer. The driver must be alert all the time when his car itself keeps the allowed speed, adjusts the track, adapts to traffic or releases it from switching traffic lights. The system is still not perfect, but I would still like to have it in my car.