Watch moment 'self-driving' car ploughs into two men as auto-brake feature fails

This is the moment an accelerating car rams into two men who were apparently expecting an auto-braking system to kick in.

The Volvo XC60 accelerates straight into the men, who have no time to jump out of the way.

The shocking video has been viewed more than 2.3 million times since being uploaded to YouTube by local blog Remolacha.

The men, who were lucky to escape with only bruising, were reportedly taking part in a demonstration of the car's "pedestrian detection" safety system in the Dominican Republic.

However, Swedish car giant Volvo claims the men were unwittingly facing a vehicle without the feature - which is only installed as a part of an add-on package costing £1,900 in the UK.

A Vovlo spokesman added that the auto-brake feature would have been overridden anyway by the driver's heavy accelleration.

"Volvo Cars strongly recommends to never perform tests towards real humans," he added.