As promised, Volvo is currently rolling out the 180 km/h speed limit for all newly manufactured vehicles, but even the reduced speed limit won’t make a significant difference in improving safety, said Volvo Cars Safety Centre boss Malin Ekholm.
In an interview with Autocar, she said: “180 km/h is still fast, so is it going to be the end of speeding? No, it’s not.” Volvo is going ahead with it anyway because Ekholm said it’s simply a limitation, “and there really is no reason to go faster than 180 km/h. Everyone talks about speeding, but we wanted to do something to show we’re serious. That will initiate an in-depth dialogue on the subject.”
There’s been a great deal of input from the consumer side, and the reactions have been largely cynical. But Ekholm countered: “There are always sceptics, because the challenge with human behavioural aspects is that the issue of speed is connected to how our brains are programmed. We’re not programmed to comprehend speed at a high level.”
“So how can we do that in a nice way? How do we balance the freedom to move with safety, what does the road map look like and how do we include the sceptics? The speed cap is the first step to looking into what is safe speed – and how do we help you maintain it?”
Volvo hasn’t quite determined what the safe speed is in the current era of motoring, but deciding on a number requires cooperation from multiple parties, from politicians to traffic authorities and NGOs. “Different groups can contribute different things: governments can introduce legislation and enforcement, for example.”
Ekholm added: “As a car manufacturer, we want to bring to the table the toolbox we have, which includes speed caps, and look at how we can make drivers the best they can be in every single situation. It’s about doing so in a way that’s understood to help and not a Big Brother approach.”
“Twenty years ago, it wasn’t necessarily fun to drive fast, because it wasn’t comfortable. Now cars are fantastic and behave the same at any speed, so how can we translate the old signals you got that you were going very fast into a modern context?”
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I don’t know. I’m a little indifferent to all of this. yes, too much nanny state is never a good thing. But I can understand where he is coming from.
Cars have gotten better, and more isolated, and given the increased performance of modern cars, they can very easily exceed the capabilities of the driver despite all the safety net on new cars now.
Unless you have had some form of advance driving course or had years of track experience, most would have no business to go that quick, even before factoring the OTHER inattentive drivers that would get in your way. The handling limits of a car is remarkably low if you apply incorrect inputs (thank god for ESC).
Even our godcars can hit 180, but it doesnt take much for the drivers to overcorrect…and we always see what happens next.
FWIW, I’ve taken cars close to 300kmh, and to be honest, it is scary like hell. If it doesn’t scare you, then you really need to start worrying.
Then drop all the high-capacity turbocharged engines. I’m happy to go pass any Volvos that fitted with 1.0T – 1.2T
Turbo engines at those capacities tend to be 3 cylinders, and unrefined when idle. Downsizing to 2.0 litre is juust nice, bare minimum for big cars also is like PSA Group’s 1.6
Anything past legal speed limits is asking for trouble. The problem is, these idiots are involving others into their troubles. If they speedkill themselves on a lonely road in the middle of a forest I don’t care.
Just another way to say that Volvo are too tired being a Volvo
Volvo Cars Safety Centre boss Malin Ekholm cannot assume that others don’t go above 180 if himself doesn’t do that. give what customers want rather than give what you want.
Customers are often misinformed by their own peers. Friends are their expert advisors. Sales people gloss over facts to get their commission. Besides, in our context, how many good roads do we have that can take such speeds. How well can our fellow road users react to ‘us’ expert drivers on their tails? 180km per hour is plenty fast. Cheers and be safe on the roads. Don’t know what’s lurking at the next junction…
Mex, north south express highway, NKVE and elite highway are a few highways that are capable for having cars hitting 180 kmph.
Its not speed that kills, its stupidity.
Speeding far past your capability to handle is stupidity. So does speed still kills? Yes.
Any speed can kill even 50km/h… the point is, why Volvo keep on debating on 180km/h? are they running out of ideas and come out with 180km/h speed limit? We can always argue why not 150km/h or 110km/h? those speed still kills
Because certain countries have higher speed limits than Malaysia, and they still need to build cars for use on unrestricted Autobahn so yes there is a need to be higher that 110 or 150 kmph but certainly no reason to go past 180kmph from their studies.
speed kills those who drive smart too, it’s just the law of physics
to be truthful, other than autobahn, there’s no much place where you can sustain driving 160 over long periods.
even in highways where it’s possible to drive that fast, there’s too many cars on the road, so it’s quite tiring trying to speed up, then slow down then sped up again.
for most people, 130km/h is the sweet spot in highways where you can still drive relatively fast but have enough time to react to people cutting in lane and a sudden stop because of slow trucks / accident ahead.
The Japanese has been doing this for donkey years already
No reason to buy volvo.
well, 180 is still wayyyy too fast but at least volvo is doing something responsible
180km/h is too fast, why not 150km/h or follow the highway speed on 110km/h is more safety, I will agreed without any objection. then PLUS highway will become more safe, because a lots of idiots speeding on highway, especially bus.|
the amount of people against this simply baffles me. how often is it that you go above, or even close to 180? or even 80 in your daily commute? for gods sake, all your recon alphards and vellfires etc have had this limit for decades. even our local cars can barely even achieve those speeds
It is not up to volvo to decide what speed limits we should follow. It never was.
i think its always good to have more safety measure.
Im sure most of us dont even go that fast on daily basis, we just like the bragging rights of having a vehicle that can go that fast. maybe we will visit the top speed once in a while.
IMHO, why not cap the top speed at 200kmh as the magic number? im sure any accidents that happened during 180kmh and 200kmh will bear the same results anyways?
for real safety reasons, why not just cap every car at 110kmh according to the national speed limit?
One reason will do, “driving excitement”.
Then why you put a s90 with 407hp?? For what purposed if not for speed?
In gear acceleration, in other words overtaking power.
im struggling to fathom the need for high powered cars then….
The new volvo made in china ma. The china volvo spare part not as sweden volvo spare part. The body quality not as sweden volvo body. Example i 40 years use volvo. Now i got s80 mk1 2005. I try to use china spare part, O2 sensor. About 3 months the O2 sensor is not funtioning. Made in sweden can use about 10 years.
Then We will not buy the volvos. Why do you think everyone’s dream car is the world’s fastest like Bugattis and Lamborghinis? Because of their capabilities.
99% of people who bought Bugattis have never riched their top speeds. They just bought them because their own safety is in their own hands.
Even our top goverment officials will not be interested in buying Volvos anymore because for example if i see a police car in my country driving a volvo, i already know that “I CAN GET AWAY”
ADVICE: VOLVO, DONT BE STUPID!!!!!!
No reason? Ok, so why don’t you limit the Polestars too?
Yup confirmed, ‘Volvos for unkers only’