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Volvo borrows cachet and power from its Polestar EV brand
The $155,000 Polestar 1 plug-in hybrid with 600 horsepower and a 100-mile driving range isn't coming to market until next year, but its parent Volvo is giving us a taste ahead of that. It just unveiled the "Polestar Engineered" flavor of its upcoming S60 hybrid sports sedan, and will also offer the option on its V60 estate and XC60 SUV vehicles in 2019.
Volvo's new XC60 is better than ever at not killing people
Volvo's 2018 XC60 isn't the newest thing at the New York Auto Show -- it was actually unveiled in Geneva -- but it was too Swedishly pretty not to spend time with. The XC60 will land in the US later this year (price unknown, sadly), but it turns out every XC60 will a little American by default. 2018 will see Volvo build a production facility in South Carolina that'll make every XC60 sold around the world. I kind of expect Volvo to sell quite a few, if only based on the strength of its tech package and design.
Volvo's driverless road train in Spain is public mainly on the plain (video)
It's been awhile since we saw Volvo's SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) project, which was last running out of harm's way on a test track near Gothenburg. Volvo has just taken a big step forward in fostering confidence by conducting its road train on public asphalt. The 124-mile Spanish test both proved that the cars could stay driverless without posing a threat and upped the ante for what the cars could do: the lead truck, an S60, a V60 and an XC60 all moved along at a brisk 53MPH with a tighter gap between vehicles than there was in the original test, at just 20 feet. SARTRE was so successful in the public run that Volvo is now focusing on far less contentious issues -- like making sure fuel use drops by the promised 20 percent. There's still the looming question of making a viable business model, though Volvo's dream if realized will make sure no driverless car has to go solo.
Volvo announces touchscreen-based rear seat entertainment system
Volvo unfortunately isn't providing any pictures of it just yet, but the automaker has announced a new rear set entertainment system that might just make those actually driving the vehicle a little envious. Dubbed the RSEi-500, the system is based around a touchscreen of unspecified size, and packs a 500GB hard drive for media storage, a DVD player, USB and A/V inputs, and built-in WiFi to let you pair it with a Sprint OverDrive or other mobile hotspot (or your home network when you're parked in the garage, for that matter). You'll also get Windows XP for an OS, although there's no word on the specs for the computer at the heart of the system (we'd expect it to be a bit too underpowered for a mobile LAN party though). Volvo also isn't making any firm commitments about which vehicles the system will land in, but Autoblog apparently has it on good authority that it'll be available on both the Volvo XC60 and XC70 starting this summer.
