I have a nearly new Volvo V60 PHEV. The touch screen is a PITA to use but otherwise I have found it to be easy to drive, comfortable and economical. I worry a bit about the complexity but as it is in warranty and I will have extended warranty I am not too concerned. I have found the switches to turn off the lane keeping aid and speed limit control. I don't trust the speed limit control as there a couple of places nearby where it says the limit is 20 whereas it is actually 40!
I remember the (previous?) CEO of Volvo espousing about wanting to make Volvo a car which no one died in. I believe real functional safety is now a stronger USP than it ever had been when they first got into it with the 2/4/6 series models given the volumes on our roads. Sadly the underlying engineering and concepts supporting it seem to diverging from real experience in many cases. Volvo show thus more than most.
Now Volvo are Geely owned
platform sharing stuff has gone mental, Is the screen safer? why is the XC40/90 now almost all screen based.
button reduction has achieved daft levels, wait until they are ten years old, spares, new versions, upgrades?
Tech has become a differentiator in the luxury market and so is being driven down our throats.
Compliance and mandatory safety equipment has almost reached farcical levels, when will nanny be mandatory?
So more and more gets loaded on the screen which cannot avoid distracting you. Especially given the bouncy state of suspension and road surfaces pretty much everywhere.
If you want a (should not, but) laugh watch some of the videos on Youtoob about the state of drivers of the new generation of BEV in China. Many of them are first generation drivers and new to it. The cars they buy are very powerful. There are so many driver-out-of-control videos and so often they blame the vehicle which makes me laugh.
I think the real safety culture that got Volvo where it was is now gone behind the false benefit of modern fashion design. It is getting lip service but the commonisation of parts and systems in Chinese brands has overtaken it. The chinese market is seeing a massive and sharp downturn following enormous investment in production leading to pricing competition which we would find unbelievable. It would be real features like Volvo's methodical approach to safety that would have remained a real differentiator. Instead they are now just leveraging Geelys parts bin and producing the same stuff everyone else does. I do respect how amazingly far and fast the Chinese makers have moved but worry that this is going to be a mass market upset about to occur. Sad.
