Volvo Cars, the premium carmaker, 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.
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.
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, the S90 and the V90 - Slippery Road Alert and Hazard Light Alert, which use the cloud to share safety-critical data between cars.
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.
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 four-cylinder diesel engine coupled to a new manual six-speed transmission will deliver fuel economy of 4.3L/100km in the S90 with emissions down to 114g/km CO2. A new automatic six-speed transmission coupled to the D3 will deliver 114g/km CO2 and 4.3L/100km. The D3 will also now be available with all-wheel drive.
This 90 Series model update sees the introduction of a new exterior colour, Maple Brown, on the S90 and V90. The updated models will go into production in mid-November.
