[Foggy18]

As Volvo is a company that remains dedicated being a leader in safety, they have announced they will be limiting the top of all future cars to 112mph. Their goal is to have zero deaths or severe injuries in any of the cars by 2020. Since this is a speed that you'd essentially never hit with regular driving, it may only be a deal breaker for those who get to use the Autobahn. https://www.autoblog.com/2019/03/04/volvo-112-mph-top-speed-limit/

 

[Watson58]

As Volvo is a company that remains dedicated being a leader in safety, they have announced they will be limiting the top of all future cars to 112mph. Their goal is to have zero deaths or severe injuries in any of the cars by 2020. Since this is a speed that you'd essentially never hit with regular driving, it may only be a deal breaker for those who get to use the Autobahn. https://www.autoblog.com/2019/03/04/volvo-112-mph-top-speed-limit/

I have mixed feelings about this. The choice of 112 mph is most likely based on a g force calculation that would yield a supposedly "survivable" -5.11 de-acceleration in a collision where 112 mph is reduced to zero within one second. At the same time, a head on collision where both cars are at this speed most likely would not be survivable (-10.21 g). You can have all the protection outside your body possible but when your heart, spleen, and liver hits your rib cage at 112 mph, the survivability of those organs become questionable.

To be honest, limiting speed of a transportation tool I think is very silly.

 

[Aizen]

I would imagine that thanks to the rise in standard safety tech and drivers aids that the number of accidents in Volvo products has already dropped off significantly. I do wonder whether or not this new limiter will also apply to their Polestar brand, because those are looking much more performance oriented.

 

[Foggy18]

I already read that Polestar said they will not be following suit with this new safety initiative. Proves that this sub brand has some independence and will continue to build cars focused on performance. Do the majority of accidents not happen at speeds less than 100mph anyways?

 

[Kalvin]

This seems more like a marketing gimmick than an actual solution to a problem. With the rise of autonomous systems and v2v communication, road safety is going to increase a lot over the next few years anyways.

 

[Aizen]

Since so few Volvo owners will ever drive at this speed, its something that will go on largely unnoticed. So long as their upcoming performance models are subject to these limitations, I dont see affecting sales/interest.

 

[stan]

I certainly don't see this as a problem. I lived in Germany for 5 years and I spent many hours on the Autobahn and 112 MPH would be a reasonable top speed. I had a Volvo 240 which would easily cruise at 90 (with a little reserve left in the throttle) and very few cars passed me. Those that did were usually of the more exotic variety, not every day passenger vehicles.