2004 Volvo S40 I Sedan 4-door 2.4l on 2040-cars

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Big rig gets blown over on Wyoming freeway, flattens police cruiser

A big rig navigating a stretch of windy Wyoming highway last week was blown over by high winds and landed on a Wyoming Highway Patrol cruiser. According to CBS News, three Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers responded to an accident along Interstate 80 near Elk Mountain on February 7. While the troopers were out of their cars assisting the crash victims, a white Volvo semi-truck lumbered up I-80 toward them. Wind gusts in that part of Wyoming were clocked in at up to 90 miles per hour on Tuesday, and one of them caught the semi as it neared the parked cruisers. Video from one of the cruiser's onboard cameras showed the big rig drift to the right as a big gust hit the trailer. Slowly, the whole rig tipped over and flattened one of the parked cruisers. The truck then slid a few feet on its side and came to a stop just aft of the cruiser. None of the troopers were injured in the incident, and two people in the truck came out of it unhurt as well. Patrol Lieutenant David Wagener told KGWN that that stretch of I-80 was closed on Tuesday to lightweight, high-profile vehicles. The truck driver was cited for the incident. High winds are no joke, and vehicles getting blown around or even clean off the road is a pretty common phenomenon. Way back in 2011, a truck got blown over in Utah. Then there was a train that got blown off a bridge in Louisiana in 2015. Related Video: News Source: CBS News, KGWN Auto News Dodge Volvo Driving Safety Truck Commercial Vehicles Police/Emergency Sedan semi truck rollover wyoming

Volvo's electric XC90 SUV to include lidar as standard equipment next year

DETROIT — Volvo Cars plans to make lidar sensors standard equipment in a new generation of its XC90 SUV next year as part of a strategy to deploy more advanced safety and automated driving technology that relies on precise images of the world around the vehicle. The decision by Volvo Cars to fold lidar sensors into the base price of its vehicle is a bet that customers will pay for the additional capability. It has been called a "watershed moment" by some in the industry. The Swedish brand, owned by China's Geely group, is taking a sharply different road from rival Tesla Inc, which has shunned lidar and radar and is focusing on just cameras and software for its automated driving systems. Self-driving car sensor startup Luminar Technologies Inc will supply Volvo Cars with its Iris lidar and Sentinel software in combination with software from Volvo in the electric XC90 SUV that will be built in South Carolina and go on sale in 2022, the companies said. The new technologies are designed to address traffic situations that often result in severe injuries and fatalities. Over time, the technology will become more capable and will increasingly intervene to prevent collisions, the companies said. "By having this hardware as standard, we can continuously improve safety features over the air and introduce advanced autonomous drive systems," Volvo Cars Chief Executive Hakan Samuelsson said in a statement. Lidar sensors, which use laser light pulses to render precise images of the environment around the car, are seen as essential by many automakers to enable obstacle detection and avoidance in advanced driving assistance systems and eventually in fully automated vehicles. Complete sensor set on on electric successor to XC90 Until now, lidar has been too costly for automakers to implement as anything other than an option that costs extra. Luminar CEO Austin Russell said the pricing for its lidar is on the order of $1,000 per unit. Volvo Cars' chief technology officer, Henrik Green, said cost is not the focus for the Swedish auto brand. While the price of the technology will come down over time as volumes grow, the rollout will accelerate use of automated services that the company can charge for. Green said subsequent vehicles will add the lidar package as standard, and that this continues Volvo Cars' history of being first to standardize many safety features, including three-point seat belts and side-impact airbags.

Thanks for keeping us on our toes, Detroit Auto Show [w/poll]

Here at Autoblog, we love unexpected debuts at auto shows – and judging by our Detroit Auto Show comments and traffic, you do, too. Surprise reveals have been fewer and farther between in recent years with so many ways for vehicles to be teased or leak out, but this week's show has been a revelation. More to the point, it's been a series of revelations, with automakers from around the globe successfully delivering a brace of concept and production surprises. It's made our jobs a lot more exciting and challenging this week, and even though it's actually more work to react and run-and-gun when the sheet is pulled on a surprise reveal than it is to publish an already-written embargoed story, we've had more fun covering this show for you than any domestic show in memory. We hope you've enjoyed the surprises along with us. To that end, borrowing the words of an unnamed automaker PR flack, we'd like to thank the following automakers for enduring "mountain of antacids" and that "creeping sense of paranoia" necessary to keeping ones' wares totally under wraps until the sheets are pulled off the sheetmetal: Buick Avenir concept Chevrolet Bolt concept Ford GT concept Ford Mustang Shelby GT350R Ford F-150 SVT Raptor Hyundai HCD-15 Santa Cruz concept And while we're at it, we'd like to throw in an shout-out to Detroit's substantially revised and revitalized Cobo Center, and in particular, the redone Michelin media center, which is arguably the single best accommodations for writing show stories that we've encountered on the entire international circuit. Well done, everyone. Thank you, and keep the surprises coming. Auto News Detroit Auto Show Buick Chevrolet Ford Hyundai Volvo 2015 Detroit Auto Show