Cramming big-car kit in their itty SUV.
Resurgent Swedish luxury carmaker Volvo has fanned flames surrounding its impending XC40 compact SUV this week by speaking to the media about its safety credentials (naturally) and its relaxing driving demeanour. While it may be Volvo’s first crack at this highly-competitive segment, it appears that the company will be giving it the same sort of overall personality and convenience as its bigger cars.
“Modern city life presents complex challenges for drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and other road users. With XC40, we aim to reduce the cognitive load on the driver. While our safety and driver-assistance systems actively identify and mitigate potential conflict, you as a driver can relax more and enjoy city driving.” — Malin Ekholm, Vice President, Volvo Cars Safety Centre
In the UK, the XC40 will come as standard with the company’s ‘City Safety’ suite of active driver aids, including systems like pedestrian detection, autonomous emergency braking, and blind spot monitoring. According to insurance statistics, earlier versions of City Safety have reduced the number of insurance claims by a sizeable 28%.
Volvo on Call will also be available (a feature that calls the emergency services in the event of a collision), Pilot Assist (a system that pairs adaptive cruise control with advanced lane keep assist to drive the car semi-autonomously within a lane), as well as Run-Off Road Protection/Mitigation (which prepares the car and its occupants for the worst should it detect the vehicle leave the road). These systems are expected to be featured as standard on higher-end models, while available as options lower down the food chain.
“Many accidents are caused by ‘mismatch moments,’ where you glance over your shoulder or check the instruments just as someone walks onto the road. This is where we can make a difference. But technology can be just as powerful whatever the reason it is called into play — whether someone is on their phone, or their concentration has wandered, if we can get their attention back on the road quickly we can make a big difference.” — Tent Victor, Senior Technical Leader for Crash Avoidance, Volvo
In their aim to get attention back on the road, the XC40’s City Safety suite has been optimised by combining a sound alert as well as a pulse of the brakes, which has resulted in a 0.3-second improvement in reaction times over the visual & audible alert that we’ve seen before with the heads-up display units featured on plusher models. As a result, the XC40 will not be offered with an HUD at all (not even as an option), as it’s “not appropriate” for the car due to the way it’s built.
Some 1.5-million people are expected to be killed on the road around the world, rising to a considerable 2-million in the next three years. By 2020, Volvo aims to ensure that no one is killed or seriously injured in one of their cars, and Ekholm stressed that the XC40’s advanced active and passive safety features signify a big step toward realising the company’s Vision 2020.
To further this vision, Volvo has been collecting data from its offices worldwide, including Asia, Europe, and North America, as well as its home market of Sweden. This long-standing commitment to safety research, the company says, underpins its reputation of building safe cars, allowing it an advantage over its rivals thanks to its wealth of data from real-world testing, rather than the simulations and assumptions that its rivals rely on.
When it arrives, the Volvo XC40 will be built on a new ‘Compact Modular Architecture’ (or CMA) that will go on to underpin the rest of the 40-Series range, and will see motivation from a new range of Drive-E engines, with three- and four-cylinder petrol and diesel powerplants expected, along with a twin-engine plug-in hybrid (expected to be mated with a three-cylinder 1.5-litre petrol). Bosses within the company are confident that the new compact crossover will be one of its most successful offerings, following in the footsteps of the XC90 and XC60, which have each grown to dominate their segments.
Bowing in at the upcoming Frankfurt motor show, we will be bringing you more updates on Volvo’s nascent compact SUV as they come.
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