Volvo Cars and Volvo Trucks team up to share road hazard data
Volvo Cars and Volvo Trucks are actually two entirely separate entities.
Volvo's willing to share its data beyond its borders, but not too far beyond its borders, apparently.
Volvo Cars announced this week that it will soon share anonymized, real-time vehicle data with another manufacturer, a first for the Geely-owned automaker. That other manufacturer? None other than Volvo Trucks , which despite the name is actually a wholly separate entity.
"Being run down by a Volvo truck in Sweden" can now be struck from your list of roadside fears.
Starting this year, Volvo cars in Sweden and Norway equipped with the automaker's Hazard Light Alert system will be sharing live safety data with Volvo trucks running its own hazard-alert system. It can help drivers avoid problems around blind curves or ahead on a planned route, allowing folks to (ideally) avoid any traffic-related issue.
Hazard Light Alert works when a driver turns on a vehicle's hazard lights -- it then sends a signal to all nearby Volvo cars connected to the cloud, warning them that something might be in their way soon. The system is standard on all -90 and -60 series vehicles, as well as the XC40, and has been around since 2016.
"The more vehicles we have sharing safety data in real time, the safer our roads become," said Malin Ekholm, vice president of Volvo Cars' Safety Center, in a statement. "We look forward to establishing further collaborations with other partners who share our commitment to traffic safety."
Vehicle-to-vehicle technology, such as the Hazard Light Alert system, is slowly rolling out in various corners of the globe. By using short-range communications, vehicles are able to warn nearby cars about hazards, whether it's a car creeping out from a blind alleyway or a pothole that just claimed some poor driver's tire. Toyota plans to launch its V2V system in 2021, and other automakers aren't far behind.
