The speedo sports some neat tricks, including an image of the current speed limit, a red dot next to the current speed limit on the speedo dial, and highlights on the outside when the cruise control is set.
The S60 reads street signs via one of the three instruments housed in the top-centre of the windscreen. The number it reads is the one displayed on the dashboard. It’s not perfect – I drove 15 km out of my garage and down the QEW before it stopped showing me “10 km/h” as the limit. (10 km/h is the speed limit inside our parking lot). But, it works most of the time, and I liked having a rough guide to work with.
   2014 Volvo S60 T6 AWD. Click image to enlarge |
There is no shortage of gadgets hiding in plain sight on the Volvo if you go looking. Three cameras and sensors in the windscreen control the City Safety and Pedestrian & Cyclist Detection with Full Auto Brake systems, while a separate radar unit hidden in the grille controls the adaptive cruise control. It can be set to a variety of distances and will maintain distance all the way to a full stop. I used mine in peak-hour highway traffic and never once touched the pedals for 18 km. It also works at red lights (if there is a car in front of you), but I found I had to use the throttle to take off again once I’d come to a complete stop. The car will do it by itself if you allow it, but it was too slow and annoyed people behind me. The adaptive cruise control can be set to maintain as much as 150 m, so I was never in any danger of the system failing before I had time to react.
   2014 Volvo S60 T6 AWD. Click image to enlarge |
City Safety includes a head-up display of LED lights which warn when you are too close to the car in front, and when you’re about to hit it.
“City Safety uses camera and radar-based technology to determine whether you are approaching a vehicle too quickly. It provides a visual and audible warning to the driver and will even pre-charge and apply the brakes in order to minimize the severity of a collision, or avoid it entirely. A recent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) study found that among all of the modern technology innovations to help drivers avoid a crash, Volvo’s City Safety stood out among the rest in preventing collisions, injuries and insurance costs.” This is the working explanation and a bit of gloating from the Volvo PR release.
The PR copy also explains Pedestrian & Cyclist Detection with Full Auto Brake. “Introduced as a ‘world-first’ in the 2011 Volvo S60, Pedestrian Detection with Full Auto Brake utilizes radar and camera-based technology to monitor the movements of vehicles and pedestrians in front of the vehicle. If the system recognizes a collision is about to occur, a visual and audible warning will sound, alerting the driver of the pending situation. If the driver does not react to the warning and fails to initiate braking or steering inputs, the car will automatically brake with full force moments before the collision becomes unavoidable.”
I wasn’t game to try either system, but I was given a carpark demonstration using bollards and it worked perfectly. Volvo also offers lane monitoring, but it is only an audible warning of an impending lane departure – there is no visual accompaniment nor will it actively adjust the steering wheel. The likes of Ford and Audi with their active lane-keeping systems have Volvo trumped there.
New for 2014, Volvo has moved to a radar-based Blind-Spot assistance system. The previous camera-based system was unreliable in low-light, rain and other conditions. This radar-based approach is more reliable, and allowed Volvo to give cross-path detection to the S60. That system alerts a driver to crossing traffic if he/she is about to back out into it – handy in a busy shopping-centre carpark.
Last, and probably most enjoyably, in this list of tech features is the all-wheel-drive system with instant traction and torque vectoring. The result is an S60 that turns sharply into a corner and maintains a tight trajectory right through to the finish – even with a lead-footed driver at the helm. The grip and traction offered by this car was impressive on everything from highway off-ramps to tight and narrow road-work slaloms.
