Continental Emergency Steer Assist Could Help You Safely Avoid Accidents

Continental may be best known to consumers as a tire company, but the German company builds everything from tires to electronics and more for OEMs. Lately, the company has been hard at work on new vehicle safety systems, and we were able to sample its newest accident avoidance technology.

One of the latest safety technologies from Continental is Emergency Steer Assist, or ESA. Only recently revealed to the press, the system allows the driver to steer away from obstacles without losing control of the vehicle. ESA uses sensors including radar to cameras to monitor the road conditions ahead of the vehicle. If it senses an obstacle, say a stopped car, it warns the driver either through an audible or haptic (touch) signal like vibrating the steering wheel. According to Continental, an average driver moving around around 60 mph needs around 91 feet to avoid a stationary obstacle without the use of brakes, but around 40 feet when using brakes on adverse conditions like wet roads. When the driver cannot react fast enough within that distance, though, ESA allows driver to steer away from such an obstacle without careening into other lanes or vehicles.

We tested the system on Continental’s test track in Lindau am Bodensee, Germany. In four runs, we drove our ESA-equipped BMW 5 Series at speeds from 25 mph to over 55 mph. At each run, our accompanying engineer (you didn’t think we did unsupervised it, did you?) sequentially activated the various ESA components (which includes the Electronic Stability Control), then had us swerve around a target usually less than 40 feet away. Oversteer threatened at one point around 37 mph. But we found the car increasingly easy to control: At over 55 mph, there was no oversteer as we smoothly avoided the target while our vehicle stayed within its lane.

According to Continental, the ESA system, which is a part of the ContiGuard safety system, is currently in “advanced development”. Besides the need for the sensors and warning systems to be standard, ESC, a vital component to ESA, needs to be standard in all vehicles as well. All new vehicles in the U.S. must have ESC standard by 2012; in Europe, by 2014.

– Joel Arellano