All About City Safety
Ok, so like many of my male friends, we don’t want to give up control of anything to anyone, much less a car. I mean, why would I want some high tech device to stop my car…I’m not good enough? Well probably not. Last summer my wife and I were heading down to Washington, D.C., stuck in world famous I-95 traffic. I’m stopped waiting for some signs of life ahead. I looked over my shoulder at our dog and bumped into the guy in front. I looked up and saw that I was moving….too late. Honestly, wasn’t more than 4 mph. The only damage was to his car, where my license plate bolts scrapped his fender. That cost me $550. That wouldn’t have happened with City Safety.
In April this year I drove an XC60 with City Safety. After I-95, I think City Safety has my vote. When driving the XC60 with City Safety, I was surprised at how quickly and aggressively the system applies brakes, at speeds less than 9 mph it stop our XC60 completely. OK, if there’s ice, snow, rain or whatever makes a road surface slippery, the stopping distance will change. From 10-18 mph the system will reduce vehicle speed and help to reduce vehicle damage and injuries, especially whiplash. I borrowed this from an IIHS report: “Rear-end collisions are frequent, and neck injuries are the most common serious injuries reported in automobile crashes. They account for 2 million insurance claims each year costing at least $8.5 billion. Such injuries aren’t life-threatening, but they can be painful and debilitating.” Guess I helped contribute to that cost next go around.
City Safety works by calculating the distance to the forward vehicle and road speeds relative to each vehicle to determine if your near future life includes bumping into a stranger’s vehicle. Mounted up behind the windshield, near inside rear view mirror is a laser camera. Interesting – all these years we’ve built safety systems that are hidden, like energy absorbing systems, great brakes, collapsing steering columns, whiplash seat, stuff that’s just waiting to be used, but you’ll never see. With City Safety it’s right in sight; guess you could use it to impress the neighbors. Hey, no one has this but Volvo.
I asked the engineer who worked on this, why no red warring light, like a “heads up display?” “By the time you see the light, and we wait for you to apply brakes, you’ll have hit the car in front.” His logic, and he’s right, is the system works faster than you or I. Our Collision Warning System with Automatic Braking does have a nice red led ‘bar’ light to warn you, looks like someone’s brake light right in front – heads up display style, but then in most cases you do have time to react.
Guess we men just have to learn when to bow to something smarter than us. I like City Safety. Well, back to work. James, my counterpart out West is pestering me for help with the Detroit Auto Show, we have press days January 11-13 and public days start the 19th.
4 Comments
Hey Dan,
When will the specs of the XC60 be available on the Volvo web site? Before I commit to any car in January, I’d like to compare the XC60 with the XC70.
Also, please leave a note to your boss that we in Canada would love to lay our hands on diesel models.
Best regards from Montreal.
Hi Orckid,
Here’s what I can give you today. Our marketing guys would draw and quarter me if this included Options. As soon as we can button up options and pricing, we’ll post it here. Sorry there isn’t more I can do right now. (see below)
Diesels have been tough for Canada and US. Biggest issue, prior to expensive gas, was volume and emissions standards. Basically, too expensive for a market that generally does not want diesles and has/had cheap gas. Yes we could make them for both markets but volumes would not justify cost to develop unique engine systems, certifications, retailer technical training, and parts inventories. In other markets, diesels have been developed with existing standards and with subsidized fuel prices. In US (as of 12/15/08) gas was average $1.65 and diesel was $2.42 about 46% difference which would take rather long time to break even. You guys have a much better deal: 82 cents per liter for gas and 95 cents for diesel…well sort of a good deal.
While there are folks like you who would buy diesels, which is a small group, we are focusing on the next generation of power systems – electric. Ultimately we will have a plug-in hybrid with either diesel or gas as for backup. There is an electric motor for each wheel with tons of torque. In a sense, we will probably skip diesels in favor of electric platforms.
Take care,
dan
Here are specs that we can release at this time:
Volvo Cars of North America
Volvo XC60 U.S. Market
Technical Data
T6 AWD
Engine
3.0 Liter, inline 6-cylinder, double overhead cam, 24-valve turbo with intercooler STD
Compression ratio 9.3 : 1
Configuration Transverse/AWD
Displacement 2,953 cc
Bore x stroke 82.0 x 93.2 mm
Horsepower (SAE net) 281 @ 5,600 rpm
Torque (lb.-ft. SAE net) 295 @ 1,500-4,800 rpm
Max engine speed 6,500 rpm
Fuel, rec. octane Regular
Transmission
Six-speed “Geartronic” driver-adaptive automatic STD
Gear ratios
First gear 4.15 : 1
Second gear 2.37 : 1
Third gear 1.56 : 1
Fourth gear 1.16 : 1
Fifth gear 0.86 : 1
Sixth gear 0.69 : 1
Final drive ratio 3.75 : 1
Brakes
4-channel Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) with Hydraulic Brake Assist (HBA), Optimized Hydraulic Brakes (OHB), Ready Alert Brakes (RAB) and Fading Brake Support (FBS) STD
Disc diameter, front/rear 12.9 / 11.9 in.
Suspension
Front suspension: MacPherson strut, with asymmetrically-mounted coil springs, hydraulic shock absorbers, stabilizer bar STD
Rear suspension: Multilink independent suspension with coil springs, hydraulic shock absorbers, stabilizer bar, cast aluminum subframe STD
Steering
Power assisted, rack and pinion steering STD
Turns, lock to lock 2.9
Turning circle, curb to curb 38.4 ft.
Steering ratio 16.0 : 1
Wheels and Tires
7.5″ x 18″ – “Mantus” Alloy Wheels with 235/60-R18 Tires STD
Exterior Dimensions and Weights
Curb weight 4174 lbs.
Front track 64.3 in.
Rear track 62.4 in.
Fuel tank capacity 18.5 U.S. Gallons
Ground clearance 9.1 in.
Height 67.4 in.
Length 182.2 in
Towing capacity 3,300 lbs.
Wheelbase 109.2 in.
Width 74.4 in.
Interior Dimensions
Cargo capacity (seats down) 67.4 cu. ft.
Cargo capacity (seats up) 30.8 cu. ft.
Headroom, front with sunroof 38.0 in.
Headroom, front without sunroof 39.0 in.
Headroom, rear with sunroof 38.1 in.
Headroom, rear without sunroof 39.5 in.
Hiproom, front 54.2 in.
Hiproom, rear 53.8 in.
Legroom, front 41.2 in.
Legroom, rear 36.4 in.
Shoulder room, front 56.7 in.
Shoulder room, rear 55.2 in.
Fuel Economy
Automatic transmission, city (estimated) 15 mpg
Automatic transmission, highway (estimated) 22 mpg
Dan -
Thank you very much for the insights on diesel propulsion. I, for one, thought that European diesel emission standards were much tighter than North American standards – up to the new ‘clean diesel’ standard offered by the German automakers, and mandatory in most U.S. states and Canadian provinces.
An electric power plant will have very limited interest for me: it’s a 485 km journey up to the cottage and there are no electric engines on the drawing boards that could offer such performances. Even my commute to work checks in at 70 km. I believe only the GM Volt, when available, could get me there, but not bring me back home without replenishing the cells.
From the numbers and stats offered for the XC60, it appears to be just a little lighter than the XC70 T6, but fuel consumption is considerably higher: 12,8 L/100km, vs 9,0 L/100km for the same XC70. Quite a difference!
So all in all, I still won’t rule out the XC70 from my choices, nor can I rule out the VW Jetta wagon TDI or the Mercedes Benz ML 350 TDI…
Hi Orckid,
June 2006 new U.S. diesel fuel standards were implemented. The new environmental rules require a 97 percent reduction in the sulfur content of highway diesel fuel, from its current level of 500 parts per million (ppm), to 15 ppm. Refiners were required to start producing this cleaner fuel as of Thursday, and it should be available nationwide by October 15.
Thinking back, diesel at that time was not a marketable advantage, gas was cheap; diesels were more a novelty than being practical. Then with this new ruling, we had no plans to develop unique emissions system for a very small market potential, rest of world had their own standards which were not transferrable to our market. OK, so as gas prices went up, maybe there could be an opportunity, but still very small return on investment for us.
Our ReCharge car(s) – electric hybrids, will have a range of about 80 miles on battery. Using small gas/diesel engine (maybe around 1.6 ltr.) when the battery charge is getting low, the engine kicks in to run at a steady, fixed rpm to power ReCharge’s generator. So as long as you keep feeding ReCharge gas/diesel, you will have a regular range for travel.
Going to be interesting to compute MPG/KPL if all you drive is 40 miles per day – electric only, great for gas mileage. Maybe we will start selling gas preservative for fuel tanks.
Hope that helps.
Kind regards,
dan