Volvo's Million-Car Network Will Now Warn You About Moose, Roadwork, and Crashes Ahead
An over-the-air update teaches Volvo's connected cars to flag large animals, roadwork, vulnerable road users and accidents to each other. EX90 drivers also get Dolby Atmos inside Apple CarPlay.
Volvo is pushing a software update to the EX60, EX90 and ES90 that adds four crowd-sourced hazard warnings: a Large Animal Alert, a Vulnerable Road User Alert for pedestrians and cyclists near highways, a Roadwork Alert, and an Accident Ahead Alert fed by connected Volvos and traffic management centers. The same update gives the EX90 Dolby Atmos spatial audio inside Apple CarPlay.
The safety features build on the connected-safety system Volvo has been running since 2016, when its cars started warning each other about slippery roads and activated hazard lights. The principle hasn't changed: when one car's sensors detect a hazard, the event is sent to the cloud, and pushed to other Volvos approaching the same spot. What's new is the range of things the network can now flag, from a moose on a Swedish forest road to a construction zone behind a blind crest.
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A million-car sensor network
Volvo says more than 1 million of its cars now have connected safety activated, and the data doesn't stay inside the brand: through the European Data for Road Safety ecosystem, hazard alerts can be shared with other carmakers' vehicles and national traffic authorities. That matters because the usefulness of a warning network scales with how many cars feed it, and single-brand fleets hit a ceiling fast.
"Every time a Volvo car shares safety intelligence, it helps other drivers prepare earlier to avoid accidents and feel safer," said Åsa Haglund, who runs the Volvo Cars Safety Centre.
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The alerts will roll out in Europe, the US and Canada, with timing varying by model. All three recipient cars sit on Volvo's newest software-defined architecture, and the update is the kind of thing Volvo now leans on in its marketing: S&P Global Mobility recently rated it the only legacy carmaker to reach Level 5 capability in software-defined vehicles, and shipping new safety functions over the air is the proof of concept.
Atmos in CarPlay, if you have the speakers
The audio half of the update brings Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos to Apple CarPlay in the EX90, running through the optional Bowers & Wilkins system and its 25 speakers. The fine print says the B&W setup is required for the full effect, and that it's an ordering option on the EX60, EX90 and ES90.
Volvo isn't first here: Atmos in the car has spread quickly, with Rivian, Mercedes, Cadillac and Polestar among the brands already supporting it. The change for Volvo drivers is that iPhone users no longer have to leave CarPlay to get it.
The features arrive as an over-the-air software update, no service visit required, which is precisely the point Volvo is trying to make.
