Page 34 - On The Move - Volume 18, Issue 3

Buick Enclave CUV Restyled, Better Vehicle Inspection Systems
Safety Upgraded for ‘22 Key to Safer Highways

Buick’s Enclave large CUV gets a midcycle refresh for the 2022 model year with Automated vehicle inspection systems at dealerships and service ga-
styling changes and safety upgrades. rages can make driving safer by detecting hard-to-find tire and underbody
The updated 7-passenger, 3-row Enclave features new front and rear fascia, problems, a provider of the technology says.
grille and lighting, including LED taillamps and updated wheels. The CUV’s top-level More than 45% of respondents in a recent survey of service person-
Avenir trim and Sport Touring appearance package give buyers dynamic options to nel at U.S. car dealerships and repair garages by UVeye indicate automated
best fit their lifestyles. tire-inspection systems would more accurately pinpoint serious problems
Standard for all ’22 Enclave trims is Buick Driver Confidence Plus, a suite of nine and help ensure customer safety.
active safety features: automatic emergency braking, front pedestrian braking, lane Automated camera-based underbody inspections also have proved to
keep assist with lane departure warning, lane change alert with side blind spot alert, be much faster and more accurate in finding critical safety problems relat-
rear-park assist, forward collision alert, following distance indicator, rear cross traffic ed to brake, fuel and steering systems, UV Eye, an Israeli-based supplier of
alert and IntelliBeam automatic high beams. high-technology inspection systems, says in a news release.
Rear-park assist was standard on the previous Enclave, but the other eight fea- While more than 80% of the garages surveyed offer routine low-cost
tures now are standard, Buick says. spring or winter vehicle checks, most visual inspections are done in less than
Driver assistance, convenience and infotainment features include standard 15 minutes and can identify safety-related issues less than 40% of the time.
front park assist and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, plus available rear The survey shows nearly 60% of all tire checks are based entirely on a
camera mirror, rear pedestrian alert and color head-up display. visual shop-floor inspection, while only 6% of service departments rely solely
Interior features include a restyled center console with push-button Electronic on automated systems. UVeye estimates that even fewer underbody inspec-
Transmission Range Select, premium soft-touch materials throughout the cabin and tions are automated.
available heated, ventilated and massaging front seats. Drive-through camera-based inspection systems are faster and can de-
The ’22 Enclave is powered by a 310-hp 3.6L V-6 linked to a nine-speed auto- tect safety defects more accurately, UVeye CEO Amir Hever says. Using arti-
matic transmission. Front-wheel drive is standard but all-wheel drive is available on ficial intelligence and machine-learning technologies, a tire-inspection sys-
all but the base Essence trim. tem can identify within seconds a tire’s brand and technical specifications,
The Avenir trim includes unique front and rear fascia, grille, body-color lowers, while recording pressure, tread depth, sidewall damage and other potential
taillamps, liftgate emblem and wheels; unique interior trim appliques and seat sew safety problems.
pattern with piping; chrome cargo sill plate; heated, ventilated and massaging front An automated underbody inspection can take less than 90 seconds to
seats; available Continuous check for a wide variety of problems as well. Multiple high-resolution cam-
Damping Control active eras can generate thousands of images per second to pinpoint missing com-
suspension technology; ponents, damage and other safety-related issues much more accurately than
adaptive cruise control; and the human eye.
enhanced automatic emer- “While most service departments have checklists to help guide techni-
gency braking. cians and customer service personnel through an inspection process, there’s
Buick has not yet an- no industrywide standard for identifying serious vehicle safety issues,” Hev-
nounced pricing or an on- er says. “The development of automated inspection technology removes in-
sale date. consistencies and human error from the equation.”
Source: WardsAuto More than 6.7 million accidents and 36,000 fatalities were recorded on
U.S. roads and highways in 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Trans-
portation. More than 30% of all vehicle accidents are caused by some form
of mechanical failure, DOT studies have shown. Tire and wheel problems are
Average Age of U.S. Vehicles Hit the leading component cause of highway accidents accounting for more than

Record 12.1 Years in 2020 40% of the total, followed by brake failures at 25%.

While tires continue to be the leading vehicle-component cause of
highway accidents, undercarriage damage also poses a significant risk for
car owners since it is much more likely to go unnoticed.
The average age of U.S. cars and light trucks rose to a record 12.1 years in 2020, UVeye has developed a variety of automated inspection systems that
as Americans drove fewer miles and scrapped more vehicles during the COVID-19 combine proprietary algorithms, cloud architecture, artificial intelligence,
pandemic, according to IHS Markit. machine learning and sensor fusion technologies to help standardize and
The research firm said the two-month increase in vehicles' average age over the 2019 speed up most inspection processes previously done manually.
figure could be short-lived as sales of both new and used cars continue to pick up as The company began installing contact-free vehicle-inspection systems
the pandemic eases. at new and used-car dealerships and used-car auctions in the U.S. last year.
Vehicle miles traveled in the United States declined more than 13% in 2020, Source: WardsAuto
according to IHS, while more than 15 million vehicles were scrapped - about 5.6 per-
cent of the total vehicle population.
Normally, such a high scrappage rate would cause average vehicle age to de-
cline, the firm said. But fewer miles traveled, combined with lower vehicle sales
during the pandemic, had the opposite effect, with average age rising from 11.9
years in 2019.
IHS researchers also said an ongoing shortage of semiconductors, which cut
into vehicle production, resulted in lower dealer inventories and inflated transaction
prices, in turn causing a concurrent rise in used vehicle prices.
The firm said these factors could cause the average vehicle age to go back down
in 2021, as more owners sell or trade in their older used vehicles.
Source: Reuters

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