Ford Uses Continuously Controlled Damping to Take The Shock (and Damage) Out of Potholes

Ronnie Schreiber
by Ronnie Schreiber

America’s infrastructure is decaying. Add that to the fact that we seem to prefer to fix roads rather than build them to last in the first place, and the result is that U.S. drivers are likely going to come across a pothole or two in their typical travels. The new Ford Fusion will feature a pothole mitigation system that will make that path a little smoother, allowing the car to literally skip over the road hazards.

It’s not just a matter of comfort; potholes cause a lot of damage. Per the Detroit News, the American Automobile Association released a study on Wednesday that said that damage to vehicles caused by potholes costs American drivers about $3 billion every year, and the average repair cost is about $300. TRIP says that potholes cause urban drivers each over $500 in damage on average each year.

Likely because of the proliferation of large and wide aluminum wheels (and corresponding tires with minimal sidewall height), AAA notes that the people whose vehicles do get damaged by chuckholes tend to experience repeat instances, with vehicles being damaged an average of three times in five years. Wheels aren’t the only things that potholes can damage. Control arms and even unibodies can be bent or broken.

Ronnie Schreiber
Ronnie Schreiber

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, the original 3D car site.

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  • RideHeight RideHeight on Feb 20, 2016

    So is this approach basically a Flash Boys take on the old Citroen tire-change thingy where your car for a split-second becomes 3-wheeled with the 4th one prevented through shock stiffening from dropping all the way down into the hole? I'd still be more impressed if the conventional suspension flattened more Ping-Ponk balls. As it is, pretty lame payback for all the gratuitous tech involved. I'd rather go tundra tire.

  • Jthorner Jthorner on Feb 20, 2016

    Having a suspension system which responds to what is coming instead of just dealing with what happens real time is very cool. I wonder if anyone is incorporating topology information from GPS receivers into the behavior of cruise control, transmission shifting, braking and other systems. Traditional automotive systems are closed loop affairs always adjusting to what just happened through feedback loops. Now that vehicles have sensors about what is coming up, the game can change. For example, an automatic transmission downshifting to maintain cruise speed just before a vehicle crests a hill top is wasteful. It is much better to bleed off 1-2 mph if you know that a downhill stretch starts in 20 seconds, but traditional cruise-control + automatic transmissions wouldn't know that.

    • RideHeight RideHeight on Feb 20, 2016

      All that might be cool if it provided radically better results on rough pavement. But that ain't what the Ping-Ponk balls are telling us.

  • LD LD on Feb 22, 2016

    This is like when I test drove a 2015 GMC Yukon with the the base tire package 265/65-18 and it rode a little harder than the base 2014 tire package which was 265/70-17. Then I was encouraged by the salesman to test drive the the vehicle with the upgraded tire package 275/55-20 and it was definitely harder and one felt every bump. And then finally I test drove the granddaddy of them all, the GMC Yukon Denali with the 285/45-22 tire package with the GM magnetic ride suspension and all that the magnetic ride suspension did in my opinion is bring what would have been an extremely hard and jarring ride back down somewhere between the base (18 inch) and the mid level (20 inch) tire package. There is no substitute for rubber cushioning, comfortable and easy on maintenance.

  • Lou_BC Lou_BC on Feb 22, 2016

    Take away message................... pick the right rubber you get a better ride than using mechanical substitutes! This is where we need Jack and his masculinity remarks... LOL

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