When Volvo Cars famously declared that no one would be killed or seriously injured in their vehicles come 2020, there were a number of questions. Namely, how they would prevent this from happening on cars that had over 320hp on tap. Well, turns out their solution is to electronically limit the speed limit of their cars to 180km/h.
This will be done beginning the year 2020. Their CEO acknowledges that this won’t solve the problem, but it does send a clear message and is “worth doing if [they] can even save one life”. How’s that for a company with a moral compass?
But he says the real reason they’re doing this is to start a conversation: is it okay for manufacturers to try and change driver behaviour for the sake of safety? Many existing technologies do, (seatbelt reminders, anyone), but most are done in compliance of regulations. Volvo want to pioneer a new way of looking at safety once again.
Excessive speeding also makes in-car safety technology less effective. In the US alone, a quarter of all traffic-related deaths are speed-related.
Volvo Cars are also planning to introduce and discuss other safety-related technologies on the 20th of March. Stay tuned for that.
