Incident 70: Self-driving cars in winter

Description: Volvo autonomous driving XC90 SUV's experienced issues in Jokkmokk, Sweden when sensors used for automated driving iced over during the winter, rendering them useless.

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Alleged: Volvo developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed Volvo , drivers in Jokkmokk and drivers in Sweden.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
70
Report Count
4
Incident Date
2016-02-10
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam

CSETv0 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Full Description

Volvo autonomous driving XC90 SUV's experienced issues in Jokkmokk, Sweden when sensors used for automated driving iced over during the winter, rendering them useless. As a response, Volvo has moved the sensors behind the windshield so windshield wipers can wipe away snow and ice during winter weather.

Short Description

Volvo autonomous driving XC90 SUV's experienced issues in Jokkmokk, Sweden when sensors used for automated driving iced over during the winter, rendering them useless.

Severity

Unclear/unknown

AI System Description

Volvo XC90 autonomous driving cars using radar, LIDAR, and sonar

System Developer

Volvo

Sector of Deployment

Transportation and storage

Relevant AI functions

Perception, Cognition, Action

AI Techniques

Lidar technology, radar sensors, environmental sensing

AI Applications

autonomous driving, self-driving vehicle, environmental sensing

Location

Jokkmokk, Sweden

Named Entities

Volvo

Technology Purveyor

Volvo

Beginning Date

2016-02-10T08:00:00.000Z

Ending Date

2016-02-10T08:00:00.000Z

Near Miss

Near miss

Intent

Unclear

Lives Lost

No

Infrastructure Sectors

Transportation

Data Inputs

traffic patterns, radar, LIDAR, video camera footage

CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Harm Distribution Basis

none

Sector of Deployment

transportation and storage

Self-Driving Vehicles Meet Their Match When Snow Creates Sensor Blindness
insurancejournal.com · 2016

In Jokkmokk, a tiny hamlet just north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden, where temperatures can dip to 50 below, Volvo Cars’ self-driving XC90 sport-utility vehicle met its match: frozen flakes that caked on radar sensors essential to reading …

Self-driving cars succumb to snow blindness as driving lanes disappear
autonews.com · 2016

DETROIT (Bloomberg) -- In Jokkmokk, a tiny hamlet just north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden, where temperatures can dip to 50 below, Volvo Cars’ self-driving XC90 SUV met its match: frozen flakes that caked on radar sensors essential to rea…

2025ad.com · 2016

There will come a day when automated driving technology steps out of the controlled testing environments and into the real world. For Volvo, that day will arrive in 2017. But are self-driving cars ready to face the elements?

Volvo describes…

5 Things That Give Self-Driving Cars Headaches
nytimes.com · 2016

Fully automated cars don’t drink and drive, fall asleep at the wheel, text, talk on the phone or put on makeup while driving. With their sensors and processors, they navigate roads without any of these human failings that can result in acci…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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