If the rumours that had Volvo distancing itself from Ford Motor Co. in summer were true, the blue oval would have made it in time to grab hold of the latest budding technology of the Göteborg company: the City Safety introduced on the new XC60 at Geneva.
The new gadget, management’s focus during the presentation, prevents crashes at low speed between the equipped vehicle and another moving in the same direction. The preventive action on the brakes engages on the basis of information from a front radar and an acoustic signal averts the driver. It’s an old emphasis on Volvo’s safety tradition.
Gerry Keaney, company vicepresident and director of sales and marketing, reportedly revealed to Automative News that City Safety will not only be adopted on the entire range, but will also be considered for some model Fords. Keaney underlined that a different choice would have been surprising: “Usually the latest finds in technology have their debut on premium cars and are then deployed on large-volume cars after a certain period. It would be strange if City Safety were never assembled on a Ford”.
A couple of weeks ago Mercedes Benz had a big embarassment when its collision avoidance system failed to work spectacularly on TV.
Euroncap has announced the latest crash test results: 5 stars for the Toyota Yaris and the Fiat Croma.
After the catastrophic results in the crash-test conducted by ADAC (see following video), the European importer has announced that the Landwind chinese SUV will be modified: all Landwinds will be reinforced, so that occupants will be safer in case of a crash. It remains to be seen whether the price of a Landwind, its main selling point, will get still higher (it has already climbed from the attention getting 16.000 € initially announced).