I just got back from AstaZero, Sweden's brand new proving ground built especially for testing the active vehicle safety systems of the future, and while it's amazing, the last thing I expected to find there was New York's Harlem.
I'll soon tell you everything about the playground where Volvo comes to chase faux moose without hitting any, but before I do, let me show you its fake town, a tiny settlement with exceptional road quality and only six buildings hiding in the woods.
Well, there's no other way of putting it: It's pretty much the Bollywood version of Harlem, just an hour drive from Gothenburg.
The reason for the wallpaper is that the best way to test how easy it is to confuse the cameras and sensors of a prototype is to print out a healthy dose of Google Street View material from New York and apply it to the fake frontier, giving the gadgets as many colorful signs, letters and graffiti as humanly possible.
Hey New Yorkers, how is the food on the corner of 101 West and 137th Street?
Here, it's like in Ikea on a Sunday.