Volvo closes in on 2 key goals with redesigned XC60

February 28, 2017 12:00 AM

Douglas A. Bolduc

BRIAN WILLIAMS / SPIEDBILDE

Despite heavy camouflage, key elements of the current Volvo design language are visible.

BRIAN WILLIAMS / SPIEDBILDE

Volvo will use the redesigned XC60 to move closer to two of its midterm goals: having a fully autonomous car on the road in 2021 and making sure no one is killed or seriously injured in one of its new vehicles by 2020.

The second generation of Volvo's global best-seller will debut at the Geneva auto show on March 7. It will have three new advanced driver assistance features that provide the driver with automatic steering assistance or support -- when needed -- to help avoid potential collisions.

The XC60's City Safety system has been updated to include steering assistance, which engages when automatic braking alone would not help avoid a potential collision with another vehicle, pedestrians or large animals. The steering support is active between 50 and 100 kph (31 mph and 62 mph).

Volvo has also added a system called Oncoming Lane Mitigation, which helps drivers avoid collisions with vehicles in the oncoming lane. The system works by alerting a driver who has drifted out of the lane and by automatically steering the driver out of the path of any oncoming vehicle. This system is works at speeds of 37 to 87 mph.

These two systems are standard in the new XC60.

The third safety technology, which is optional, is called Blind Spot Information System. Along with alerting a driver to the presence of a vehicle that is in the blind spot, the system has been upgraded to steer the car back into its own lane and away from danger.

“All three of these new features represent clear steps in our work toward fully autonomous cars,” Malin Ekholm, senior director of Volvo's safety center, said in a release. “We have all of the benefits of the safety technology we introduced in our larger 90-series cars in the new XC60."

The new Volvo XC60 has an updated version of its City Safety crash-prevention system that now include steering support to help avoid a potential collision.

Those features include a system that prevents the driver from running off the road and protects the driver if such an accident is unavoidable as well as Volvo's optional semi-autonomous driver support and convenience system, Pilot Assist, which can steer and brake the car through a traffic jam as well as help control the car when driving in the highway.

"This is fully inline with our strategic approach to develop automotive safety systems based on real-life, real-road safety," Ekholm said. "Our vision is that no one will be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo car by the year 2020.”

The XC60, which goes on sale later this year, is crucial to Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson's plans to set a fourth-consecutive record for global sales in 2017 and push the automaker to its goal of selling 800,000 vehicles worldwide by 2020. Last year the XC60 accounted for 30 percent of Volvo's record global sales of 534,332 vehicles.

The SUV is the first vehicle from Volvo's 60-series family to use the automaker's scalable product architecture (SPA), which already underpins the award-winning XC90 as well as the V90 and V90 Cross Country station wagons and S90 sedan.