USA - Volvo multi Billion investment has delivered a stunning SUV, the XC90, and now, the amazing S90 Sedan.

Volvo Cars has chosen the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit to launch its new signature premium sedan, the S90, underscoring its long term commitment to the US market and providing a clear sign of its confidence in continued sales growth in the coming year.

Volvo sales in the US increased 24.3 per cent in 2015, with an especially strong performance at the end of the year with sales rising 87 per cent in October, 90 per cent in November and 89.9 per cent in December, driven by continued strong sales of the XC60 crossover and the new XC90 SUV.

“There are strong indications that Volvo is back on track in the US,” said Lex Kerssemakers, Senior Vice President of the Americas at Volvo Car Group. “We expect this strong sales momentum to continue in 2016, helped by the new S90.”

The launch of the S90 highlights the ambition of the Swedish car maker, following an $11bn investment and the recent breaking of ground in Charleston, South Carolina, where Volvo Cars will build its first American production facility, employing around 2,000 workers.

“We have always placed great significance on our presence in the US. That is why we decided to present our S90 to the public for the very first time at the Detroit show, and why we have begun to build a Volvo factory here,” said Håkan Samuelsson, President & CEO of Volvo Car Group.

The launch of the new S90 forms the second chapter in the complete renewal of Volvo’s product range, which began in 2015 with the new XC90 SUV.

The XC90 received around 88,000 pre-orders in 2015, surpassing the company’s expectations of around 50,000 and providing a strong signal that customers appreciate Volvo’s new design, engineering and technological direction.

The S90 has been widely praised since its reveal to the world’s press in December for its stunning exterior and sumptuous interior. 

Its proud yet non-aggressive face, characterised by a concave grille, itself a homage to the Volvo P1800, is home to Volvo’s new Iron Mark. The T-shaped Thor’s Hammer lights deliver a powerful sense of direction that makes the S90 unmistakable on the road.

Inside this low, four-door coupé, Volvo has taken cues from the success of its XC90 model and raised the bar with some stunning details on the new dashboard and instrument panel, including new air blades that stand vertically on each side of the Sensus user interface.

“We created our new flagship sedan, the Volvo S90, as a real game changer. It is classy and cool. The exterior is exceptionally well surfaced with a fantastic stance and the sort of clean lines that are singularly appropriate of a Scandinavian design. 

The interior masters the art of blending innovative technology and natural materials into an elegant, welcoming and tasteful ambience, Swedishness at its best,” said Thomas Ingenlath, Senior Vice President, Design at Volvo Car Group.

Semi-autonomous drive

The S90 launches with IntelliSafe Assist as standard. This includes Adaptive Cruise Control and Distance Alert and the advanced semi-autonomous drive feature, Pilot Assist.

The Pilot Assist functionality gives gentle steering input to keep the car properly aligned within lane markings up to motorway speeds of around 80 mph (130 km/h) and no longer needs to follow another car. 

Pilot Assist is another step towards full autonomous drive – a key innovation area for Volvo, and one which is highlighted at the show with the Concept 26 display, which envisions how a car interior could look and feel in a fully autonomous Volvo.

Hybrid powertrain option

The S90 comes with a clean and powerful T8 Twin Engine plug-in hybrid powertrain, delivering up to 410 hp of smile-inducing power that literally offers three different car experiences in one – Pure – Hybrid and Power.

World leading safety

The S90 also introduces a world first function to City Safety - large animal detection - a feature capable of detecting large animals such as large deer, horses or moose/elk, night or day. The technology offers an intuitive warning and brake support to help avoid or mitigate collisions with large animals.

Class leading driveability

The S90 has also benefitted from Volvo Cars’ recent investment in a highly advanced chassis simulator.

“The S90 has taken a big stride forwards in terms of driving dynamics, performance and ride. We have completely redesigned the Volvo driving experience from the ground up to deliver a sense of precision, engaging control and comfort,” said Dr Peter Mertens, Senior Vice President, Research & Development at Volvo Car Group.

USA - Volvo to showcase Autonomous driving at the Consumer Electronic Show.

Volvo Cars is looking ahead to when its drivers can sit back and enjoy free time in their car on the daily commute.

At the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Volvo revealed that it is developing intelligent, high-bandwidth streaming capabilities with its technology partner, Ericsson, that will ensure drivers and passengers get the most out of their time travelling in an autonomous Volvo.

“We recently unveiled our design vision for fully autonomous cars with Concept 26. Now we are actively working on future solutions to deliver the best user experience in fully autonomous mode.

Imagine a highway full of autonomous cars with their occupants sitting back watching their favourite TV shows in high definition. This new way of commuting will demand new technology and a much broader bandwidth to ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience,” said Anders Tylman, General Manager Volvo Monitoring and Concept Center at Volvo Car Group.

Interruption-free media streaming

Autonomous drive will bring a paradigm shift to mobile net demands. Volvo and Ericsson believe that this shift will result in an increased need for consistent and high-bandwidth coverage outside densely populated areas such as city centres and suburbs.

Utilising Ericsson’s network and cloud expertise, Volvo Cars’ aim is to deliver a high-quality, interruption-free experience in its cars while on the move. By predicting your route and looking ahead at network conditions, content can be tailored to the duration of each trip and intelligently buffered to deliver a high-quality and uninterrupted viewing experience.

“Our research shows that almost 70 per cent of all mobile data traffic will be from video in the coming years. 

This requires an innovative connectivity, cloud and analytics solution that is not only capable of serving multiple moving vehicles across a highway, but also has the capacity to provide the high-quality, uninterrupted video service today’s consumer is accustomed to,” said Claes Herlitz, ‎Head of Automotive Services at Ericsson.

By learning the most common routes and times of travel, and understanding media preferences, future Volvo cars will be able to provide one-click navigation and a customised preference-based list of potential media – allowing customers to choose routes and select content tailored to the amount of autonomous time that is available during their commute.

Personalised and optimised content

“If you want to watch the latest episode of your favourite series, the car will know how long the journey needs to take and can optimise the route and driving control accordingly. 

With autonomous drive it is no longer just a question of getting from A to B quickly – it’s about the experience you wish to have in the car, how you wish to spend the time you are saving. 

With our future autonomous drive technology we will provide people with the freedom to choose the way they would like to commute and the content they would like to experience,” concluded Anders Tylman.

USA SALES NOVEMBER - VOLVO - 90.5% Growth in November & 18% growth YTD shows that Volvo is back.

Volvo Cars of North America, LLC, (VCNA) reported U.S. sales of 6,902 units, a 90.5 percent increase versus November 2014. Year-to-date sales are up 18 percent over the first eleven months of 2014.

The top seller for the month once again was the all-new XC90 luxury SUV with 2,236 units sold. The XC60 showed continued growth with 2,077 units sold, a 26.4 percent increase versus November 2014. The XC60 also represents the top seller year-to-date with 22,623 units sold, a 31.6 percent increase.

“We’ve achieved the highest monthly volume in the US market in eight years thanks in part to strong sales of the award-winning XC90 and the XC60,” said Lex Kerssemakers, President and CEO of Volvo Cars of North America. “The XC90 was just awarded the prestigious Motor Trend SUV of the Year award, and we are thrilled that consumers agree.” 

Following an $11 billion investment, the positive momentum has materialized with the first all-new model off the Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) platform, the XC90, with world-first safety technologies, a new design language, new powertrain architecture and a range of class-leading connectivity services.

Volvo North America is expecting sales to tip the 100,000 by 2017, to help dealers and grow profits.

Volvo Cars of North America, on track for its first annual U.S. sales increase in three years, expects to top 100,000 vehicles as soon as 2017, an achievement that would help more dealers become profitable and legitimize the brand's comeback efforts, CEO Lex Kerssemakers said.

Kerssemakers, who is nearing the end of his first year as North American CEO, said Volvo, which sold 56,366 vehicles in 2014, is targeting about 70,000 this year and 87,000 in 2016. He said it would then take "one, one and a half -- maximum two years" to reach 100,000, a threshold Volvo last surpassed in 2007. Through October this year, Volvo sales totaled 53,803, a 13 percent gain.

"We need to get back to 100,000 units as soon as possible," Kerssemakers said in an interview at the Los Angeles auto show. "With all the products coming, if we don't make it now, I tell my guys, we'll never make it."

Volvo sales rose 87 percent in October, the result of an 861 percent jump for the redesigned XC90 crossover, which last week won the SUV of the Year award from U.S. magazine Motor Trend.

Kerssemakers said the XC90 is in "extremely high demand" and selling with a very rich mix.

"Retailers are just grabbing the cars out of our hands," he said. "Our retailers needed a car like this. After being out of sight and out of mind [for] many customers, they needed a success story again, and now we have a success story."

Volvo dealers also are eagerly awaiting the S90, a flagship sedan to replace the aging S80. Volvo didn't unveil the S90 in Los Angeles but will introduce it "very soon," Kerssemakers said. The next major auto show is in Detroit in January.

Instead of a new vehicle, Volvo showed journalists last week a conceptual design for the interior of an autonomous vehicle. The design, which it called Concept 26, features three seat modes to accommodate various levels of human-controlled and autonomous driving, including a "relax" mode for lying back and letting the car do all the work.

The concept shows how much Volvo is focused on autonomous-driving technology, which it sees as an important tool to help achieve its goal of eliminating deaths and serious injuries in its vehicles by 2020.

Though it's considerably smaller than some companies working on similar technology -- namely, Google -- Volvo has vast experience making safe vehicles, Kerssemakers said.

"We know how a car behaves, and we have a long history with respect to safety," he said. "We know how to develop cars."

Nick Bunkley

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