Systems and methods are provided herein for operating an electric vehicle in a vehicle yaw mode. The electric vehicle includes a normal driving mode where the electric vehicle is steered by turning the steerable wheels (e.g., left or right) and vehicle yaw mode where the vehicle controls the torque applied to each wheel. In response to receiving input to initiate vehicle yaw mode and yaw direction, the system determines the inner wheels and the outer wheels and provides forward torque to the outer wheels of the vehicle and backward torque to the inner wheels of the vehicle to rotate the vehicle.

Systems, methods, and computer program products for upgrading a vehicle's functionality based on the manner in which the vehicle is operated. A predefined operating condition of the vehicle that can be assisted by a vehicle feature not presently provided by the vehicle is identified. Thereafter, a notification is communicated to a user interface that indicates availability of the vehicle feature. Subsequently, the vehicle is upgraded to provide the vehicle feature responsive to input to the user interface submitting a request to perform the upgrade.

A method for operating a vehicle in an automatic driving operation not requiring any user action which can be deactivated by a deactivation action of a driver of the vehicle includes, during the automatic driving operation in a learning phase, driving situations in which the driver deactivates the automatic driving operation are recorded by a surroundings recording device and the recorded driving situations are stored in a memory as subjectively critical driving situations. The method further includes, during an operating phase of the automatic driving operation, comparing a currently recorded driving situation to the stored subjectively critical driving situations and emitting a warning to the driver when the currently recorded driving situation matches one of the stored subjectively critical driving situations within a tolerance range.

A method for automatically reactivating a lane departure warning and/or lane keeping driver assistance system of a vehicle, comprising deactivating the system at a deactivation time point; identifying a first road condition which is associated with the deactivation time point when the system is being deactivated, wherein the first road condition is indicative of a driving situation when the driver wants the system to be deactivated; setting a reactivation threshold value, wherein the reactivation threshold value is set based on the identified first road condition and defines a limit for when the first road condition no longer applies; and automatically reactivating the system when it is determined that the reactivation threshold value is reached. The invention also relates to a vehicle control unit and to a vehicle.

The present disclosure relates to an autonomous vehicle system or a driver assistance system that detects an object in front of the vehicle, judges whether a condition calls for an operation of a lateral movement system for collision avoidance, determines a direction of the lateral movement, and executes the lateral movement.

A method for controlling a hybrid vehicle includes an engine, a battery charged with electric power generated by the engine, and a motor as a drive source and having multiple running modes that can be selected through a mode operation. As the running mode, the method for controlling a hybrid vehicle includes a normal mode configured to perform charging of the battery according to a running state; and a charge mode configured to electric power generation by the engine according to a mode operation, the method comprising setting an upper limit of charging electric power based on the generated electric power in the charge mode to be lower than an upper limit of charging electric power based on the generated electric power in the normal mode.

A method for controlling a subject vehicle with a braking system, a drive system and a distance control system, wherein the distance control system is configured to control an actual following distance between the subject vehicle and a vehicle ahead to a predetermined target following distance, wherein the target following distance is predetermined as a function of an activated operating mode of the distance control system, including performing a plausibility check by checking whether V2X data is exchanged or can be exchanged between the vehicle ahead and the subject vehicle over a V2X connection, and activating, if no V2X data is exchanged or can be exchanged between the vehicle ahead and the subject vehicle over the V2X connection, a first operating mode in which a first target following distance is predetermined as a function of a reaction time of a driver of the subject vehicle.

Detecting prediction errors includes detecting a road user; determining respective predicted data for the road user; storing, in a data structure, the respective predicted data; storing, in the data structure, actual data of the road user; obtaining an average prediction displacement error using at least one of the actual data and at least two corresponding respective predicted data; and determining a prediction accuracy based on the average prediction displacement error. Detecting map errors includes detecting a road user; storing, in a data structure, actual data of the road user; storing, in the data structure, map data corresponding to the actual data; obtaining an average map displacement error based on a comparison of at least some of the actual data and corresponding at least some map data; and determining a map accuracy based on the average map displacement error.

This disclosure is generally directed to systems and methods for protecting the health of occupants of a vehicle. In an example method, a sensor in a vehicle sends sensor data to a computer, based on detecting a symptomatic feature that indicates a health status of a first occupant of the vehicle. In one case, the symptomatic feature may be an elevated body temperature that may be symptomatic of a fever. In another case, the detected symptomatic feature may be a sound emitted by the first occupant such as, for example, a cough, a sneeze, or a wheeze. The computer evaluates the sensor data and identifies a health risk posed by the first occupant to a second occupant of the vehicle. The computer may address the health risk, for example, by modifying an air quality inside the vehicle or by instructing the occupants of the vehicle to don masks.

Disclosed are a device and a method for controlling a driving mode of a vehicle. The device includes a sensor for collecting information about an access road to a controlled-access highway, and a controller which determines a switching point on the access road at which the driving mode of the vehicle is switched to a sport mode, based on the information about the access road to the controlled-access highway, and switches the driving mode of the vehicle to the sport mode when the vehicle reaches the switching point on the access road. Thus, the vehicle accesses the controlled-access highway naturally without interfering with flow of other vehicles.