Self driving Vauxhall Grandland prototype has a built-in pelican crossing
A screen replaces the brand’s logo and gives pedestrians warnings about whether the car is moving or not
Digitised headlights that can communicate with pedestrians could be the key to making cars safer. Vauxhall’s owner, Stellantis, has developed a new system that acts like the lights at a pelican crossing, advising other road users when a car is moving or coming to a stop.
For this experiment, the automotive giant has fitted a prototype lighting system to the front of a Vauxhall Grandland. This replaces the car’s illuminated Griffin logo and illuminates only when the car is in its Level 3 automated driving mode, to give other road users an insight into what the car’s next moves might be.
As mentioned, the result looks very much like the signs at a pelican crossing: the new system can display a warning sign or a pedestrian alongside a halt gesture to indicate the car is moving and thus it isn’t safe to cross in front of it. Conversely, when the Grandland comes to a stop, this changes to a pedestrian crossing, advising those around that the car is no longer moving and that it’s safe to cross the road.
All of these logos are displayed in unique colours such as cyan, purple and green. The head of lighting at Stellantis, Philipp Röckl, explained that the team “specifically chose colours that are not already associated with other vehicle functions to avoid misunderstandings. For example, red is intuitively understandable, but it is already used for stop lights or the rear lights of cars.”
At this time, it’s unclear whether this type of technology would be permitted on UK roads; the country’s law requires headlights and daytime running lights to be either white or yellow, with some allowance given to xenon lights, which emit a slightly blue hue. Given that the colours chosen here don’t try to imitate emergency services or brake lights, there could be a time when cars are driven by computers and not people, and this type of technology could be used to bolster pedestrian safety.
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