Name: Why Volvo Is Losing Its Big Lead In Safety
Uploaded: 2021-04-25T03:56:13.000Z
Duration: 14 min 8 s
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For much of its history, the name Volvo has been practically synonymous

with safety. The Swedish brand has a long track record of safety

innovation. It has often been the first to introduce features now common

across the industry and for a long time enjoyed a reputation for going

quite a bit further than competitors to reduce the risks of simply driving

a car. The trouble for Volvo is that safety has become a far greater

priority for consumers and automakers alike than it had been earlier in

Technology has improved,r egulations have tightened and other brands are

catching up and are touting their own commitments to safety.

It's getting tougher for Volvo to distinguish itself as a safety leader.

Since it was taken over by the Chinese automaker Geely in 2010, Volvo has

been steadily hammering out a new, more luxurious image as a serious

competitor to German brands such as Mercedes and BMW.

Now it is also making a remarkably aggressive push into electric and

Volvo has frequently hit record levels of sales and profits in recent

years. In July of 2019, for example, the carmaker reported its best ever

But the carmaker in 2019 began warning investors of shrinking margins

resulting from an ongoing global trade war and slowing global demand for

cars. In late 2018, Volvo abandoned plans for an initial public offering

And Volvo is up against some far larger and far more deep pocketed

competitors in its push toward an electric future.

This is an expensive transformation fraught with risks.

Safety has been one of Volvo's defining characteristics over the decades,

and the company has a long, solid record as a safety innovator.

One of its best known innovations is the three-point seatbelt as we know

it today, which is nearly universal in cars sold in the US and in many

The three-point seatbelt held a few serious advantages over these simpler

two-point lap belts, which had been common up to that point.

Three-point seatbelts secured both the upper and lower body of each

passenger in a vehicle, preventing the passenger from being thrown forward

into the dashboard from the waist up in the event of an impact.

Volvo also introduced the world's first prototype for a rear-facing child

The company was the first to introduce side impact and curtain airbags in

Volvo created its own renowned whiplash protection system in 1998, called

Volvo was an early leader in the development of blindspot detection

technology. It also created its own rollover protection system in 2002.

In my observation, I think Volvo is a company that from very early on has

And even today, the corporation says that safety is part of their DNA and

we will see that reflected in their products.

Apart from these innovations, the company has made other moves that

distinguished it as a brand, especially interested in protecting its

passengers. In the 1990s, Volvo, along with German automaker Mercedes

Benz, pushed industry groups such as the IIHS to pay more attention to

certain types of crashes the company felt were not getting enough

Volvo continued to build cars that would protect against these impacts,

The company was ahead of the shift that would come later.

Roll the calendar forward several years and we come up with a small

overlap crash test and we find that Volvo stuck to their to the research

that they had done back in the 1990s and continued to develop products

that would offer not only good protection and the moderate overlap crash,

So Volvo products were among the first to earn good ratings in that new

crash test for us, where some of the other automakers, even though they

had had access to the same information that Volvo did back in the 1990s,

sort of ignored that crash condition until we brought it more forward

But safety has become more of a priority for buyers overall and for newer

groups of customers who have an increasing degree of clout.

More than 60 percent of car purchases are made by women and 85 percent are

influenced by them, according to data collected by cars.com.

And a survey from Kelley Blue Book found that safety is more important to

Automakers have taken notice, and while Volvo's products are still highly

regarded, there is just not the same distance between the best and the

If there is a gap, it's much smaller than it used to be 20 or 30 years ago

for sure the attention that our Christmas programs have brought on safety

and the changes that have occurred with government regulation.

The government's own efforts toward consumer information have forced the

automakers to step up their game in terms of safety.

And I think the gaps are not as big as they once were.

IIHS names vehicles from several manufacturers to its top safety picks

list, including lower priced cars from Subaru, Mazda, KIYA and Hyundai.

So absolutely has a reputation for safety and certainly people.

So she Volvo would say the question really becomes is really are you

getting more safety today with a Volvo than your other cars?

And the truth is, is that while Volvo was innovators when it came to

seatbelts and a lot of crumbles owns a lot of things in the past.

Today, we're going to get a great deal of safety with many different

vehicles. So you really don't have to go and step up to a Volvo to get a

Now, Volvo aims to distinguish itself in other ways.

When Chinese automaker Geely bought Volvo in 2010, there was a certain

degree of skepticism over the acquisition.

Geely was a rather small Chinese automaker that made low cost cars for

Volvo was thought to be on its last legs after years of ownership by Ford.

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Why Volvo Is Losing Its Big Lead In Safety

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