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Ford Motor Company celebrated production of the all-new 2010 Ford Taurus – which today was named Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ‘Top Safety Pick’ – in the historic Chicago Assembly Plant. Adapted from F-22 Fighter Jets, the 2010 Ford Taurus has tomorrow's technology today at an affordable price. The Taurus features a segment-first, radar-based Collision Warning with Brake Support system that alerts drivers to potential danger to help them avoid rear-end accidents. The system provides visual multiple LED lights that reflect in the windshield and an audible sound that goes off at the same time and sounds like this… "Cut A" or "Cut B"
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| Cut A: | "Alert-Sound when approaching object too close." :02 sec. |
| Cut B: | "Alert-Sound when approaching object too close." :22 sec. (Same sound as in Cut A) |
| Steve Kozak, Global Chief Safety Engineer for Ford Motor Company says, the radar equipped collision warning with brake support, mounted in the front-bumper of the car, would cost thousands more on other vehicles in this segment, but is available in this car segment at an entry-level price of $25,995. | |
| Cut #1: | "With a radar system as sophisticated and as functional as our system is, you're look at a vehicle that would run in the 70 to 120,000 dollar price range. You're talking about a Lexus LS 460, or a BMW 7 series or even a Mercedes S Class." :19 sec. |
| In the words of Steve Kozak, Ford is democratizing safety, by bringing these types of technologies to the family driver. The idea is introduce these accident avoidance technologies to consumers, which Kozak calls the game changers. | |
| Cut #2: | "This is going to make the difference between, what used to be air bags and seat belts that save lives, these are the technologies, these radar technologies and future technologies in active safety are truly where the life savings capability and the injury reduction capability is. Remember as many air bags as you have or as many seat belts that you have, it would be much nicer that you would never have to use them and you could just avoid the accident, and that's what we have here we have the ability to avoid an accident to begin with." :24 sec. |
| It's a radar system mounted in the front of the car that reaches out to the vehicle in front of you and notifies the driver, in ample time, to avoid an accident. Kozak says it is the same technology taken from an F-22 Fighter Jets. | |
| Cut #3: | "When I say it's got jet fighter technology, we've added a radar that looks at targets and accesses a target as a threat or a non-threat and gives a response to the driver, warning or not, that they're in an impending collision. So as far as I'm concerned it's just like being a jet fighter pilot when you have a threat or a non-threat in front of you and you need to respond." :23 sec. |
| This Delphi Radar in the vehicle is third generation, it's a phase array radar, with no moving parts. If the radar sees targets as a threat to the safety of the driver it gives a response to the driver that they are in a pending collision. The system is always out there looking, but can be deactived by the driver if they so choose. This radar tracks over 100 targets and can lock into 64 targets at a time. If you're not paying attention to what's going on in front of you by stepping on the brake or steering out of danger, you'll get the audible and visual warning, according to Kozak. | |
| Cut #4: | "That tone and visual alert has shown to be the very best in getting a reaction time from a driver in a vehicle , when they're not paying attention to get them on to the task at hand, which is time to step on the brakes." :15 sec. |
| The radar equipped "collision warning with brake support" is an option in the 2010 Taurus, the new Lincoln MKT and Lincoln MKS. Kozak says the technology will eventually be available in other Ford products. |