ATS

I asked what the differences between the Semi Active and Active Suspensions over half a year ago and I was just reading the following...

The SL / S has Active if you get ABC and the E has Semi Active if you get Airmatic..

I was reading this at this link:
http://www.gglotus.org/ggtech/active...ctivesuspn.htm

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ACTIVE SUSPENSION - WHAT IS IT?
According to Lotus' Wright, "The system is able to change the attitude and ride height of the car according to certain control laws." The benefit is that at any given moment an active suspension system can optimize the suspension. To do this an active system can control three major areas: 1) The system can control ride height according to changes in weight and in aerodynamic loading. The system can react to internal loading, such as roll and be made to create roll or no roll. 2) The system can stop the car from pitching under braking or acceleration. 3) You can actually control the springing/damping and the hub motions of the car.

So called Re-active systems can perform only the first function. A Semi-active system performs the first and second functions, but only a fully active system actually achieves all three. Controlling the springing, damping and hub motion is obviously requires the most sophistication and is the most difficult to achieve. If it does not work there is no suspension at all! Wright, " With a semi-active system, if the computer says: 'I will do nothing at all,' you still have suspension." Wright continues by saying, "Those are great differences. There ar others, but these are really in the control laws - what you are asking the system to do. That is an area where it is impossible to know what other people are doing. You can only look at videos and guess."

What Wright is saying is that with a semi-active system there is a conventional passive suspension, springs and dampers. Whereas a fully active suspension, the system is capable of sensing bumps and nearly instanteously reacts. It does this so quickly that it's almost as if the suspension anticipates the bump. Compare this to a conventional spring/shock system and you'll find the conventional system extremely retarded, reacting with seeming casualness.
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Now my question, doesn't our car do the third in the list? I thought it did.. So, do we not have Active Suspension according to this definition?

MBZ1

Mercedes ABC system is actually a type of "Active-Roll Control."

A true active suspension has double-acting hydraulic actuator instead of springs and dampers. As tires meets bump, the wheel's acceleration and vertical load is transmitted to a computer which calculates the require wheel velocity and displacement and sends control signal to the actuator. As the dialogue is conducted hundreds of times a second, the wheel accurately follows the contour of a bump, thus protecting the body structure against unwanted forces.

A real active suspension has the ability to actually physically move the wheels up or down using hydraulics. No springs, shocks, or dampers involved.

Lotus, thus far is the only car company in the world that has produced a TRUE fully active suspension system. The only production car that came close was the first generation Infiniti Q45a, but it was only half-active.