Welcome to the official blog of Volvo Cars of North America!
Remember our old blog? Well, we got a new one and we have a new home (URL).
As I’ve zigzagged across the country to various auto shows the last few months, PR decided we needed a new blog. And really, it makes sense because we launched the old blog with the launch of XC60. And since then, two cool things have happened: we’ve sold every XC60 we can beg for from Sweden (I’ll take all the credit…well, not really) and no one has fired me for writing this blog. I’ve blogged about many other things not XC60 (even vampires) so let’s widen its scope.
With this new (sort of) blog, we’ve moved beyond just XC60 (my posts were doing that naturally anyway) to more about Volvo Cars of North America and our other products. And, you may also have noticed the site is no longer at www.thecarthatstopsitself.com, it’s at this new URL, www.volvoblog.us. So, if you forget to update your bookmarks and still go to the old URL, you’ll arrive here anyway.
And, it gets better. You won’t have to listen to me ramble on as much. Just kidding. We are planning to have guest bloggers from time to time (people who are experts at their jobs here at 1 Volvo Drive in Rockleigh, N.J., and in Sweden) to talk about everything from safety, the environment and the quality of life that our cars bring to the table.
If you haven’t already, head over to the newly redesigned Volvo Cars of North America Web site as well.
So, enjoy. It sure looks nice, doesn’t it?
Good week to you,
dan
Importance of wearing seat belts
This came over our news desk recently. Amazing that some people, even a Volvo driver, believe they will never get in an accident. A couple of years ago, while talking with the head of PR at State Farm, he said that a driver can expect an accident once every 12 years. Granted, probably not life threatening, but still it’s a risk.
Frankly, I’m amazed at how folks still don’t buckle up. I had to remind my in-laws to buckle up every time we took them somewhere. That was until a couple of years ago when Grace, riding in the back of a friend’s sedan, hit a speed bump and she went flying.
Strange how today, we manufactures are held responsible for the safety of occupants, how we invest millions of dollars in research, development and manufacturing to make cars safer, in a sense to compensate for driver inattention, failure to use equipment properly, and just to buckle up.
Good week to you all.
dan
New S60 Hub
Here, check this out. Aside from all the snow at our Swedish test track in Hällered, (it’s been a long, cold winter over there) there’s some nice driving. Torque Vectoring is what we had in S60 R and V70 R a few years ago. Awesome technology for us lead foots. Good subject to explore more in another blog entry.
http://www.naughty.volvocars.com/
dan
Posted in S60 | No Comments »Hot from Geneva, Switzerland International Motor Show – S60 Debut
This just in from James:
March 2: It was standing room only in the Volvo stand at the Geneva Motor Show this morning. It was so packed, you almost couldn’t move. Like almost all the other brands, Volvo’s press conference, while filled with flashy images and big music, was subdued and to the point. Stephen Odell, Volvo Car Corporation President and CEO, made the opening remarks. He talked about the global volume expectations of about 90,000 units and made mention that the U.S. is the single largest market that will sell the car and is expected to account for almost one third of those sales. He then turned the mic over to Peter Horbury, our new (again) Design Director who went into a few of the product details. It seemed strange to see Peter on a Volvo stand again after his stint with Ford, but it also seemed right, if you know what I mean.
The media are very keen to know what’s up with the potential sale of Volvo and there simply is no update from the information sent from Ford in December. So…no scoop there.
Overall reaction to the S60 seems extremely positive. The stand has been jam-packed all day and it’s hard to get close to the cars. The shots I took are from during the conference and just afterward. The strange shot of the person in the plastic tube was going on at the Mercedes-Benz stand as they unveiled…I’m not sure what they unveiled as I kept looking at the person in the plastic tube! I’m going to walk around the show and take a few more shots of the more interesting cars on display here and will send you an update tomorrow.
Best regards,
James Hope
Product Communications
Volvo Cars of North America, LLC
BTW: All our press releases are up on www.volvocars-pr.com and we’re getting more photos and video up later today.
dan
Our future is about Prevention
Some cool news about XC60 via the below press release.
dan
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Volvo Cars’ active safety system German ADAC test winner
The largest automotive organization in the world, German ADAC, has carried out an extensive comparison test of different automatic speed and distance control systems. Volvo XC60 clearly won the test in which six different models were compared.
“ADAC has carried out a total judgment which included the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) as well as the Distance Alert and City Safety. As far as I know this is the first time a test evaluates the total effect of those safety enhancing functions,” says Jonas Ekmark, Active Safety Hub Leader at Volvo Cars.
In the report of the ADAC test is said: “the Volvo system scores above all due to the fact that it consistently puts its emphasis on accident avoidance. The driver is informed about a danger by a red flashing warning lamp, which is projected onto the windscreen. At low speeds, below 30 km/h, the additional, integrated laser technology called City Safety also recognizes stationary vehicles and in a potential accident situation, brakes in time to stop the car.”
“Our promise – best possible safety”
“It feels good that ADAC pays attention to that we have a system that consistently avoids accidents. That is our promise to the customer; to offer the best possible safety”, says Jonas Ekmark.
The exceptional position of City Safety is underlined by the fact that this system is not only unique in the whole world, but it is also in mass production in the current Volvo XC60.
ADAC underlines another characteristic of the Volvo active speed and distance control system: “even with the ACC switched off, the driver is efficiently, but not disturbingly warned, if below the safety distance.
ACC in all-new S60 – plus a world first function
The active speed and distance monitoring system is currently available for the Volvo XC60, Volvo XC70, Volvo V70 and Volvo S80. It will also be offered in the all-new Volvo S60, which will celebrate its world premiere at the beginning of March at the Geneva Motor Show.
On top of the ACC system, the all-new S60 has a world-first function; Pedestrian Detection with Full Auto Brake – a system that brakes automatically for pedestrians and can avoid a collision at speeds up to 35 km/h. The all-new S60 includes City Safety, as the XC60, as a standard feature.
The other cars in the ADAC comparison test were Audi A4, Volkswagen Passat CC, Honda Accord, Lexus IS and Ford Mondeo.
ADAC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club) is the world’s largest automotive association with some 16 million members.
Posted in City Safety, S60 | No Comments »Is this your mother’s Volvo? Part 1
We just released a couple of very good videos on our new S60. We are doing our global debut in a few weeks over in Geneva, Switzerland. What a cold place this time of year. Down by the lake is a public beach with hot food stands. Good local food and you’ll sit amongst all the locals, great fun. Right across the street is Le Casanova restaurant (quai du Mont-Blanc 3) really good Italian food and the bread is fantastic.
Anyway, we’re all excited about finally showing the S60. For us this has been a rather unique pre-launch year. We have been sending out more information earlier than with any other car. Brenda Priddy even captures us getting ready for the videos you’ll see, out in Los Angeles this past summer. This is an important volume vehicle, and as a sport sedan with performance akin to our S60Rs from years past but is more refined and frankly stunning in styling, the ‘in flesh’ experience is wonderful.
Here are two videos about this car. Turn down your speakers on this first one.
The next video presents Pedestrian Detection with full auto braking:
What’s interesting in the one segment is that it shows how we look for and define moving objects.
Take care, more to follow.
dan
Volvo Electric C30 Battery Production
A few weeks ago in Indianapolis, Ind., we helped EnerDel put on a press event for its new factory. Attending were about 20 automotive media and 30 financial analysts. The first half of the day was about battery chemistry and structure, while our afternoon covered cell pack assembly.
Ok, so I’ll never put Spielberg out of business with my video/editing efforts, and you’ll have to crank up your audio to hear, but there is some good stuff being presented. Please realize this assembly plant is in testing development and is a very small scale assembly operation; more like what we do with pre-production cars, where we work slowly to fine tune techniques and processes.
We started with Indiana’s Governor, Mitch Daniels.
Just prior to Governor Daniels, EnerDel announced that they would be building a new, $273 million battery manufacturing plant in Indiana. Capacity will be around 600,000 hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) battery packs or 60,000 electric vehicle (EV) packs. EnerDel will be the largest U.S. battery pack manufacturer when it’s up and running.
The other two segments are how batteries are made with a final shot of the C30’s twin battery pack assembly. It weighs about 300 pounds and considering we took out about 400, it makes for a really quick car.
An interesting point about present EV battery production, if one percent of all cars were to use lithium-ion batteries, all global production for cell phones, etc. would have to stop; cars would suck up all global capacity. Amazing. Ener1’s Chairman and CEO, Charles Gassenheimer, made an interesting comment about why they are building batteries here, in America: “Why lessen the importing of oil to increase importing of batteries [from Asia],” good point.
During Lennart Stegland’s (President Special Vehicles – Volvo Car Corporation, Sweden) presentation, he made a couple of interesting points about global carbon dioxide production, this chart shows who’s adding carbon to our air:
I know, some people object to the idea that carbon output contributes to global warming and, well that’s their opinion. Frankly, we live in an enclosed space capsule, a little rock in the middle of nowhere, whatever we do impacts our lives, maybe not now but at some point we’ll be in trouble.
This slide is interesting. It’s showing different solutions to energy storage:
The red cluster of five dots is what Toyota and Honda are using (good power density and good energy storage), but where we need to go is Lithium-ion technology, probably more along a combined type lithium-ion that takes advantage of EV, HEV and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) demands into one pack, but that’s for another development cycle. On one of the videos, you heard reference to a 18650 lithium-ion battery. Here’s what it looks like:
In the Prius, there are about 6,000 of these batteries, welded together. What EnerDel is working towards is different cell chemistry for different applications.
Here are three PowerPoint presentations from the other week. Of course you’re missing what’s behind each slide, sorry. If you want, please feel free to ask questions and we’ll get back to you.
• Volvo Cars Electrification Strategy
• How We Build a Battery: Cell Chemistry and Pack Construction
• Pack to Vehicle
Good week to you,
dan
Electric C30
We just got back from Detroit, our first auto show of 2010. Boy was it cold, wet, damp and gray. Last year, manufactures were talking about new products and bright futures. Seems the tone is down a bit this year. Chrysler and GM were there, but the grandness of their displays was not typical for this show. Not that I’m slanting towards Ford, just that they seemed to be the most consistent over last four or five years with their display. It’s fresh, not in your face and very clean. Not cluttered. I’ll post more about cool cars and weird displays next time.
For us, around mid-summer 2009, we had no plans for Detroit. At the same time, we started talking about what’s happening with our first fleet test of electric cars. In 2010, fourth quarter, we will start building about 50 cars for Swedish testing. Prior to test fleet production we needed to build some production-like C30’s to crash test and make certain what we build is up to our standards. Then came an opportunity to do a joint press event with EnerDel, our U.S. battery supplier that would focus on how the battery business works. We were invited to co-share the event and to bring one of our C30’s. Right now what you’ll see in these videos is chassis number 3. After it’s shown at the Chicago Auto Show in February, it’ll fly back home to meet it’s maker at 35 mph in our crash center.
While in Detroit, I asked Lennart Stegland, President Special Vehicles Division, Volvo Car Corporation, Sweden, to give us some insight into Electric C30, some of what makes it work and what makes it a Volvo.
Part 1
Part 2
Kind regards,
dan
Told You We Build Tough Wagons
In Sweden, handgun ownership is much different than here. Very strict rules. Oh, I’m certain the police have handguns, but heck, why bother trying to hit some rubber tires. I doubt any police officer in a Dodge Charger would try this method of, ‘if you don’t stop, I’ll turn you into scrap metal.’
Here is the whole sequence: http://jalopnik.com/5442691/volvo-police-wagon-flips-mounts-fleeing-audi
BTW: I’m in Detroit for a couple days, annual “Toe Frost Bit Testing and Auto Show.” Not one of my favorite vacation spots, but I do get to see some really cool cars and meet journalists I’ve not seen for…gosh 12 months. I’ll take some video of our Electric C30 for you.
Dan
Posted in safety | No Comments »Robert Downey Jr. and our V50
This was made in 2004 and I have no idea how it slipped past me, but this was done for the UK market and not the U.S. My guess is the cost to air in our market far exceeded any profits we’d get from V50 sales. My mother has this generation V50. At 85 she’s still driving, albeit not as much as she’d like, but she does know her driving time is limited. She’s taken it from Torrance, Calif. up into Wyoming and other Western states. She really enjoys the “sportiness,” whatever that means I really don’t want to know. But it hauls her and her friends with luggage and camera equipment just perfectly. And us brothers feel she’s well protected.
Part 1
Part 2
Kind regards and happy Friday,
dan
Posted in General | 3 Comments »
