Volvo S60, V60 and XC60 refreshed design for 2013; Active High Beam Control, Sensus Connected Touch system and more

“This is the most extensive development of existing models in our company’s history. Each of the enhancements is designed around our customers’ needs.” said Lex Kerssemakers, Senior Vice President, Product Strategy & Vehicle Line Management at Volvo Car Group. The entire range of Volvo’s 60 range of vehicles receive a face lift, and more features like Active High beam Control, upgrades to the Blind Spot Information System and City Safety and a Road Sign information system that uses a camera that looks farther than the driver and recognizes road signs!

Volvo has refreshed the exteriors of the XC60, S60 and the V60 with emphasis on the horizontal lines on the exterior to accentuate the width of the car, a design trend we’ve seen on all the three German marques last year. Volvo will now offer the customer the option of a sports seat with side support for those sporty moments while at the wheel of the new Volvo cars. “We’ve had nearly one hundred people of all shapes and sizes test this seat and we received a really enthusiastic response. ” says Project Director Patrik Widerstrand. The rear of the front seats have also been redesigned to give the passengers at the rear more legroom. Scandinavian design is minimalism at its finest, and the designers at Volvo have worked to eliminate unnecessary clutter.

The washer nozzles have been moved to places under the bonnet. The radar cover has been painted gloss black which hides it against the grille. The chrome frame around the grille has been removed and instead gets the new, bigger ironmark badge. The new integrated tailpipes, which can be specified with some engine variants are an astounding piece of Scandinavian engineering. In addition to being stunning to look at, the tail pipes also have to remain perfectly in place even when the exhaust system expands in length by 25mm at operating temperatures. Volvo wont tell us how they did it though, we’ll find out soon enough!

“To enhance the visual appeal of the car, customers can now specify their S60 or V60 with expressive 19-inch wheels and keep the same profile height as 18-inch ones, so they don’t lose any comfort,” says Patrik Widerstrand. The XC60 is available with 20-inch wheels while keeping the same tyre profile height and ride comfort as with 19-inch wheels.

“We were thinking of a wolf’s eyes when we designed them,” says Fedde Talsma, Design Director, Exterior about the headlamps on the Volvo S60. The S60 also gets a wider grille, daylight running lights and a new LED light guide on the tail lamps. All of these work to lower the stance of the car and add to the dynamism. The interiors get new upholstery colours, new wood inlays, a new headliner, and the silk metal frames around the air vents and light controls.

As before, you can have your S60 in a choice of three chassis types – Touring, Dynamic, Four-C (Continuously Controlled Chassis Concept). The fourth addition to the S60 this year is the Lower Sport Chassis, previously only available on the R-Design version.

The V60 has also been given the ‘horizontal’ treatment to widen the stance of the car. The V60 is also now available with the Lower Sport chassis.

The redesigned front features a new hood shape that emphasises the wide, confident look. “We’ve taken away any black trim so the car is now all one body colour. The new headlamps look very focused and determined, and the horizontal lines on the grille with its chrome bars emphasise the car’s width,” says Fedde Talsma. The interiors see new wood inlays, a new headliner, textile B-pillars and the silk metal frames around the air vents and light controls.

Sensus Connected Touch is the latest addition to Volvo’s Sensus, the name the company uses for all its HMI (Human Machine Interface) functionality. A 7 inch touch enabled screen across the range can be used for browsing ( only when not driving) and offers the usual gamut of entertainment options. Volvo thoughtfully, uses infrared, beam scanned tech on the touch screen that enables the driver to use the screen even when wearing gloves, not unlike what we’ve seen on the Nokia Lumia 920. TripInfo reads out Wikipedia information about interesting points along the route via the audio system.

Adaptive Digital Display can now be had on the new S60, V60 and XC60. The tech debuted on the Volvo V40. The display has three themes that can be selected based on how the drivers intends to drive. The themes include the normal Elegance theme, the self explanatory Eco theme and of course, the Performance theme where everything glows red!

The V60 Plug-in Hybrid also comes with an additional Hybrid Theme with blue illumination which also display additional information regarding the battery.

The new Active High Beam Control shades part of the beam so as to not dazzle oncoming traffic thereby negating the need for switching between high beam and low beam. Volvo says this is accomplished by a ‘ingenious’ projector module mechanism integrated into the headlamp. It wasn’t so long ago we had written about Audi presenting a similar technology ( albeit for fully LED headlamps) at the CES 2013.

IntelliSafe is Volvo’s blanket name for all active safety systems, and Volvo’s world-first City Safety technology plays an important part. Fitted as standard, this advanced safety system now works at speeds of up to 50 km/h. All models can also get Pedestrian Detection with full auto brake, which watches out for people walking into the car’s path.

Volvo’s much acclaimed Blind Spot Information System now also warns the driver when a vehicle is approaching rapidly from behind. The system is now radar-based.

Cross Traffic Alert uses the radar sensors at the rear end of the car to watch our for traffic when reversing out of a parking space.

Road Sign Information supports the driver by displaying road signs on the instrument display.

“As the leader in automotive safety, we have reduced the risk of being involved in an accident or being injured in one of our latest car models by abound 50 per cent since the year 2000. By continuously introducing new preventive and protective systems, we keep moving towards our safety vision that nobody should die or suffer serious injuries in a new Volvo car by the year 2020,” says Thomas Broberg, Senior Safety Advisor at Volvo Car Group.