The EX60 senses a passenger's size and weight, determining how much force to use.
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How Volvo’s new adaptive seat belts will reduce injuries during a crash
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I upvoted this comment to counter the ridiculous downvotes. In fact CA law requires the driver and all passengers age 16 and over to wear a 3-point seatbelt, with other requirements for younger than 16.
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It's still work. It's just easier than your usual work. To see that clearly, consider how spending the day(s) the way you do on your days off, even if traveling for your private interests, differs from traveling for work.
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Reminds me of this famous Volvo tag line:
View attachment 127072
Please, no one get upset. It’s a callback to an 80s movie. I actually like the current Volvo styling.
I like boxy cars. But I like energy efficiency better.
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In the interest of amplifying Snark218's earlier comment, the pretensioner on an early 00's Camry is in the B pillar, and appears to be built in to the belt reel.
Reading over some instructions regarding its removal and replacement, it's a pyrotechnic device. They warn that the battery should be disconnected for at least a minute and a half before poking at it, and they also give explicit disposal instructions that involve setting off the charge on a seatbelt assembly that has not been activated, with further warnings that the casing can be hot for up to 30 minutes after.
The official instructions also involve sticking a wheel and tyre over it if it's being set off outside the car, which I thought was kind of a funny diagram to have in a service document.
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Until it turns a hatchback into a liftback, then I'm out. Liftbacks suck.
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My 2012 Volvo had the same "innovative" system Tesla uses. For that matter, I'm fairly sure the '08 Mazda I had previously had it, too.
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On the one hand, it's great to improve safety, I don't want to hear some internet commenter saying 'but actually!' I want to avoid a brain injury.
On the other, that this requires a computer makes it a mixed improvement. My dad worked in research and development on a range of inventions and when getting investors, what drove him nuts was people saying 'but that's so simple, I could have thought of that!'. That was the point! He said, coming up with a simple solution is much much more impressive and useful than coming up with a complex solution.
I'd like a safe seatbelt, but also one with minimal complexity so that when I'm in a beater of a car that should have been serviced 20 years ago, the components have a good chance of still working.
On the other, that this requires a computer makes it a mixed improvement. My dad worked in research and development on a range of inventions and when getting investors, what drove him nuts was people saying 'but that's so simple, I could have thought of that!'. That was the point! He said, coming up with a simple solution is much much more impressive and useful than coming up with a complex solution.
I'd like a safe seatbelt, but also one with minimal complexity so that when I'm in a beater of a car that should have been serviced 20 years ago, the components have a good chance of still working.
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All good stuff, but Volvo now is not Volvo then. Today it's just another Chinese company who make their own cars and put a badge they bought on it.
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Did the author get any insights about designing for female vs male body types?
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I'm only halfway down page 1, and I have already seen two people make accusations that the trip to Sweden was a bribe for favorable coverage. There are several things to say about this.
First, if you think the reviews and articles are bought with bribes so easily, why the fuck are you still reading them? Seriously, go somewhere you think isn't so corrupt and stop wasting both your and our time.
Second, if you are going to accuse somebody of corruption, where is your evidence? Do you even have any evidence beyond "the author said something nice", and a pissy attitude?
Third, business travel is not the fun and games you seem to think it is. The first business trip or two is cool, but business trips every month for years become a chore. You have to leave your home and family. You to get there, have go through the hassles of packing, the joys of airport parking and security, long hours in coach (you aren't important enough for business class), and the joys of baggage claim and car rental. The hotels and food are good, but unexceptional. You aren't important enough to get the luxury stuff. If you are lucky, you might get a couple of hours after work to look around the place where you have gone, but jet lag might make you too tired. Then you have all the same hassles going home again. Yipee!
Finally, Ars doesn't have an unlimited budget. They either accept travel and accommodations, or the story doesn't get covered.
First, if you think the reviews and articles are bought with bribes so easily, why the fuck are you still reading them? Seriously, go somewhere you think isn't so corrupt and stop wasting both your and our time.
Second, if you are going to accuse somebody of corruption, where is your evidence? Do you even have any evidence beyond "the author said something nice", and a pissy attitude?
Third, business travel is not the fun and games you seem to think it is. The first business trip or two is cool, but business trips every month for years become a chore. You have to leave your home and family. You to get there, have go through the hassles of packing, the joys of airport parking and security, long hours in coach (you aren't important enough for business class), and the joys of baggage claim and car rental. The hotels and food are good, but unexceptional. You aren't important enough to get the luxury stuff. If you are lucky, you might get a couple of hours after work to look around the place where you have gone, but jet lag might make you too tired. Then you have all the same hassles going home again. Yipee!
Finally, Ars doesn't have an unlimited budget. They either accept travel and accommodations, or the story doesn't get covered.
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The average age of the passenger car fleet is going up steadily, which kind of flies in the face of them being “disposable”. The vast majority of cars do not get totaled in accidents.
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That being the case, owners of such longer-term vehicles should also be cognizant that seat belts have a finite service life.
Like with age-related tire life, there are no hard and fast rules, but depending on conditions, the webbing does lose its properties, outside of obvious signs like fraying, or the retractors failing.
There are prescribed time periods in high-risk applications like in racing.
Another bit of seat belt trivia, prior to the universal adoption of air bags -- during that time, there were two different specs, for vehicles with, and without them, due to differences in the amount of yield they allowed.
My fuzzy recollection is that Audi had a mechanical system that utilized the inertial shift of the engine in a collision to apply tension to the seat belts, as well as shift the steering column out of the way.
Crediting Mercedes-Benz for the laundry list of safety advancements was being overzealous.
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That's cool, but many car manufacturers innovate in safety.
MY car thinks it can detect children left in the car, and then goes nuts with a blaring alarm, and then randomly changes (I'm pretty sure) which button you have to press on your remote to fucking stop it.
MY car thinks it can detect children left in the car, and then goes nuts with a blaring alarm, and then randomly changes (I'm pretty sure) which button you have to press on your remote to fucking stop it.
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1. morning fasting, 2. lunch fasting, 3. evening fasting - oops, nevermind!
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Yeah this drives me nuts in car circles. I grew up in a body shop and drove beaters my whole life. Cars in the r
Eighties were considered worn out at a hundred thousand miles. Now anything under 150 from most brands still has more life left in it than a brand new vehicle in the eighties off the lot.
Yeah modern vehicles are harder to work on (though in a lot of ways easier to diagnose thanks to better sensors), but I so rarely have to do so that it's a non issue.
My 2014 Corolla has 120k miles on it and I've literally replaced nothing except brakes once, tires and batteries. That would be literally unheard of in the 90s. Now it feels like table stakes.
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abeinspace
Smack-Fu Master, in training
The main thing I want to know about this is: what is the failure state like when these sensors stop working? Seatbelts don't need additional failure points if failure is going to make them more dangerous.
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In this timeline, I expect this will be used to remotely disable seatbelts for those targeted by rogue governments.
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This is true, but at least seat belts are relatively easy to change out yourself. I've had to do it in both of my vehicles because of the retractors failing and the belts no longer retracting when unbuckled.
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I have owned 7 Volvos since 1990, all purchased used. The 1982 240 wagon rusted out, the 1989 740 Turbo was wrecked, but the rest are still ticking, one with 230K miles. If you maintain them, they will run forever. My wife and three kids walked away from a heavy crash with no injuries. The other driver went to the hospital. Late 90's and early 2000's Volvos are the gold standard.
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At the very least, it will probably annoy the shit out of you with audio and visual warnings every mile until you take it to the dealership to diagnose it and have to ride around in a loaner for a week or two.
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Given Volvo's lineage, this is more likely to be open sourced than slammed behind a paywall
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For a safety critical system like this, the computer will frequently self-test and throw an error if the test fails, which will be picked up as a big light on the dashboard.
I wouldn’t worry so much about the computer failing.
Whether the potentially more complicated physical part of the mechanism might have additional failure modes (compared to today’s systems) that can’t be tested for by the computer is another question, though.
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Will Volvo require a paid subscription to keep the OTA updates active? Because it seems hard to believe the company is worried about driver safety when they put a feature like this behind a paywall.
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Even BMW hasn't been that dumb, so probably not. At least, not until LTE dies and manufacturers start charging to upgrade to 5G to keep cars connected.
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That's insane, such a simple change to regulation to help save lives (and expensive medical costs)
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The downvotes are because the comment had nothing to do with the article.
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How does a comment pointing out the article's statement that no US state legally requires rear seat belts have nothing to do with the article?
The article is titled "Volvo invented the three-point seat belt 67 years ago; now it has improved it". The article's picture of a rear seat belt is captioned "[...] Wearing a seatbelt in the back of a car still isn’t mandatory in all 50 US states, in 2026." yolksf commented on the article "I don't know where you got your info to make the comment that no state requires seat belts in the back seat. In California, the driver and all passengers are required to wear a seat belt." which was heavily downvoted ( now at -26 (5 / -31) ) which was ridiculous, as I pointed out in my reply to it ( which now is at 0 (2 / -2) ), in which I linked to the CA law proving the downvoted comment correct and the article wrong.
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As you mention, the article says: "not mandatory in all states".
This reads to me as: "not [mandatory in all states]" meaning "mandatory in some states, but not in all states".
Did you (and that other commenter) perhaps read it as: "[not mandatory] in [all states]" meaning "all states say it is not mandatory"?
This reads to me as: "not [mandatory in all states]" meaning "mandatory in some states, but not in all states".
Did you (and that other commenter) perhaps read it as: "[not mandatory] in [all states]" meaning "all states say it is not mandatory"?
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The phrase is ambiguous in American common speech, as often meaning [not mandatory] in all states as not [mandatory in all states], as speakers increasingly negate or emphasize entire phrases without indicating a grouping pause (ie. a comma).
I note that either interpretation is certainly not nothing to do with the article.
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