![\"Molecular](\"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/ESP-1-300x204.jpg\")
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In the last 10 or so years, ESP has become almost as standard in new cars as seatbelts.\u00a0 OK, the manufacturers may not call this feature ESP, which stands for Electronic Stability Program(me) (the preferred term for Audi and a few others).\u00a0 It could also be called Electronic Stability Control (ESC \u2013 the original term used by Mercedes Benz <\/a>and BMW<\/a>) or some fancy marque-exclusive name like \u201cAdvance Trak\u201d (Ford) or Porsche Stability Management (guess which marque uses that one!).\u00a0 ESC is the most common abbreviation but ESP has a tendency to stick in the mind a bit more, what with the mental images of psychic cars.\u00a0 Or maybe this only sticks in my mind because I\u2019m weird.<\/p>\n Right, no matter what you call it, ESP or ESC is designed to prevent those hairy situations that happen during understeering or oversteering.\u00a0 For those of you who aren\u2019t sure what this means, understeering happens when you don\u2019t get enough turn when going out of the corner and fly off the side of the road, like a stone flying out of David\u2019s sling while the sling itself (the road) keeps curving around.\u00a0 Oversteer is the reverse, when you end up turning more sharply than you ought to and end up on the road on the other side. \u00a0This happens through driver error while we\u2019re going through the learning process but it can happen to experienced drivers as well when the road is slippery.<\/p>\n ESC has been proven to reduce accidents on wet, slippery or icy roads.\u00a0 However, like any other driver aid or active safety feature, it\u2019s not a substitute for common sense and driving to the conditions.\u00a0 No matter how good the ESP package is, it can\u2019t suspend the laws of angular momentum.\u00a0 It also won\u2019t do anything about understeer or oversteer caused by driver error when an inexperienced driver turns the steering wheel too little, too much, too soon or too late, as these won\u2019t cause the mismatch that triggers the system.\u00a0 Although it\u2019s called ESP, it can\u2019t actually read your mind as to where you want to go.<\/p>\n At least cars can\u2019t read your mind and work out where you want to go quite yet.\u00a0 Inventors and other clever-clogs are working on it, however.\u00a0 In China at the end of last year (2015), some researchers at Nankai University, came up with a brainwave \u2013 or, more accurately, a brainwave detector.\u00a0 This consists of a headset that contains EEG sensors that read the electrical pulses given off by different thoughts, which are then transferred to the steering and braking systems.\u00a0 According to a press release and a video, the team has managed to rig this up to what looks like a standard Haval H9<\/a>, and the \u201cdriver\u201d can make the car go forward, reverse, stop, lock and unlock.<\/p>\n![\"Yaw](\"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Yaw-Pitch-Roll-300x221.png\")
This is where ESC or ESP kicks in.\u00a0 During understeer that isn\u2019t caused by driver inexperience, the front wheels start sliding rather than rolling.\u00a0 During oversteer, the rear wheels are the ones doing the sliding.\u00a0 ESP detects that a wheel isn\u2019t spinning all of a sudden when it ought to be but is sliding and skidding.\u00a0 This is done with yaw control.\u00a0 Yaw is a lovely old nautical term that\u2019s been used for several centuries to describe how things swing and sway around a centre point, along with its siblings pitch and roll.\u00a0 You can visualise these easily by holding out your hand flat with the palm down and your thumb and pinkie pointing out so it looks like a plane.\u00a0 If you wiggle you hand from side to side so the tips of your fingers stay level with your wrist and your thumb and pinkie stay level, that\u2019s yaw.\u00a0 Flip your hand over so it goes palm up, then back again and you\u2019ve got roll.\u00a0 Tip your hand up and down like you\u2019re doing a snake-arms wave dance move, and you\u2019ve got pitch.\u00a0 With me so far?\u00a0 Well, the yaw detector feels how the car is yawing and matches this to what the steering system is doing.\u00a0 If there\u2019s a mismatch, the rest of the system kicks in.\u00a0 It works alongside the traction control, which compares how fast the wheels are turning with how fast the engine is going (a mismatch means slipping (spinning too fast) or skidding (not spinning fast enough)).<\/p>\n![\"esp\"](\"http:\/\/blog.privatefleet.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/esp.jpg\")
ESP always works in tandem with ABS (anti-braking skid) brakes. \u00a0This is because the main way to stop a skid is to reduce the speed, which your ESP system may do by overriding what your right foot is doing and controlling the throttle to take the power down, and by braking.\u00a0 However, as most of us experienced when we were learning to drive, if you slam the brakes on when you\u2019re travelling at speed, you skid.\u00a0 What we had to do when learning old-school style without any driver aids was to pump the brakes so they didn\u2019t lock up and skid.\u00a0 ABS brakes, however, spare us all the tap-dancing, as they\u2019re able to pump the brakes much faster than we can, even if we\u2019re part of a Riverdance line.\u00a0 A really good ESP system will apply the ABS brakes to as many wheels as it needs to (one, two, three or four) to get the speed down and get the \u201cwhat ought to happen\u201d and the \u201cwhat is happening\u201d in the yaw and traction departments happening.<\/p>\n