Volvo Cars, the premium car maker, has announced several important updates to its 90 series cars, delivering new safety, powertrain and connectivity updates.

The Swedish carmaker’s smartphone integration offer, which already includes Apple CarPlay, will now come with Android Auto functionality in Volvo’s large driver interface.

“Volvo Cars is the only car maker with a split screen interface that allows you to use both your smartphone functionality and your in-car features without changing views. This is primarily a safety-related feature, designed to make our interface the easiest to use on the market. In the same way our Over-The-Air update capability means that you will always have the latest maps updates to hand,” said Dr Peter Mertens, Senior Vice President Research & Development at Volvo Car Group.

Delivering seamless smartphone integration that covers mainstream smartphone operating systems, Volvo’s 90 series cars will also now feature a clever Over-The-Air navigation update system, which ensures that the car always has the latest maps on-board.

Safety

Volvo Cars has also applied its safety thinking to the connected car, delivering two new connected safety systems that will make their debut in the XC90, S90 and V90 - Slippery Road Alert and Hazard Light Alert which use the cloud to share safety-critical data between cars.

"Today’s Volvos contain many safety sensors. We believe that sharing safety-related information – whether around conditions or hazards on the road ahead is a thoughtful and useful way to use the information the car is already gathering,” added Dr Peter Mertens. “With Connected Safety, Volvo Cars is helping to define a completely new type of road safety system.”

Volvo Cars’ Scalable Product Architecture, on which the 90 series and coming 60 series will be built, means that new safety systems can be added across the range of cars built on the platform with little or no delay.

Slippery Road Alert increases the driver's awareness of both current road conditions and those on the road ahead, by anonymously collecting road surface information from cars further ahead on the road and warning drivers approaching a slippery road section in advance.

Hazard Light Alert forewarns drivers of vehicles that have activated their hazard warning lights on the road ahead, providing the driver with enough time to slow down. This is particularly useful on blind corners and over the crest of hills in the road. These two new connected safety systems will go live in Sweden and Norway initially with a planned roll-out to other markets.

Powertrain updates

In addition to delivering updated connectivity and safety, Volvo Cars has also added several new Drive-E powertrain variants, delivering an attractive balance of fuel economy and drivability. The D3 4-cylinder diesel engine coupled to a new manual 6-speed transmission will deliver fuel economy of 4.3 l/100 km in the S90 with emissions down to 114 g/km CO2 . A new automatic 6-speed transmission coupled to the D3 will deliver 114 g/km CO2 and 4.3 l/100 km. The D3 will also now be available with All-Wheel Drive.

Design

This 90 Series model update sees in the introduction of a new exterior colour, Maple Brown on the S90 and V90.

The updated models will go into production in mid-November.

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Volvo Car Group in 2015

For the 2015 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 6,620 MSEK (2,128 MSEK in 2014). Revenue over the period amounted to 164,043 MSEK (137,590 MSEK). For the full year 2015, global sales reached a record 503,127 cars, an increase of 8 per cent versus 2014. The record sales and operating profit cleared the way for Volvo Car Group to continue investing in its global transformation plan.

About Volvo Car Group

Volvo has been in operation since 1927. Today, Volvo Cars is one of the most well-known and respected car brands in the world with sales of 503,127 in 2015 in about 100 countries. Volvo Cars has been under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding (Geely Holding) of China since 2010. It formed part of the Swedish Volvo Group until 1999, when the company was bought by Ford Motor Company of the US. In 2010, Volvo Cars was acquired by Geely Holding.

As of December 2015, Volvo Cars had almost 29,000 employees worldwide. Volvo Cars head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Volvo Cars head office for China is located in Shanghai. The company’s main car production plants are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), Chengdu and Daqing (China), while engines are manufactured in Skövde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China) and body components in Olofström (Sweden).