1993 Volvo 240 Base Wagon 4-door 2.3l on 2040-cars

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Volvo to test 100 self-driving cars on Swedish roads [w/video]

Autonomous vehicles are increasingly being tested on public roads around the globe, including Nissan in Japan and Google here in the US, and now Volvo is preparing to test its own self-driving cars on the streets of Sweden. In conjunction with the state government, Volvo's Drive Me project kicks off next year, starting with the development of customer research and infrastructure technology before setting 100 self-driving cars loose on the streets of Gothenburg in 2017.
These 100 cars will be in the hands of customers, and the tests will help Volvo and the Swedish government track varying aspects of self-driving cars including economic benefits, consumer confidence, traffic flow and passenger safety. The technology being developed by Volvo uses not only on-board radar and sensors but also map data gathered from the cloud, and it controls all driving systems including the brakes, throttle and steering. Drivers can engage and disengage the car's autonomous drive mode by pushing a button on the steering wheel, and the technology will also allow for a self-parking feature.
While the cars shown in this demo are S60 models, the test vehicles will be based on Volvo's upcoming Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), which underpins future models like the next-gen Volvo XC90. Scroll down for a video and press release marking the announcement.

Volvo aligning model range into three families

Things have been slow in Gothenburg the past few years, but they're picking up speed. The only new model Volvo has released in the past four years since it was taken over by Geely - that being the V40 introduced in 2012 - started its development when the company was still under Ford's umbrella. But now the Swedish automaker is preparing to launch a volley of new models, and the new XC90 is only the starting point.
Volvo has set out to align its product portfolio into three model families - 40, 60 and 90 - each with three body-styles: sedan, wagon and crossover. (Volvo presented a tidy little table, which we've replicated below, to outline what it has in store.) That means a new S40 sedan and XC40 crossover as well as a replacement for the current V40 wagon, all to be based on a new platform shared with Geely. It also means replacements for the current S60, V60 and XC60 to be based on the modular SPA platform that underpins the new XC90, as well as a new S90 sedan to replace the S80 and a new V90 wagon to succeed the V70 and move it up-market above the V60.
All of these models are set to arrive within the next four years as Volvo moves to replace its entire lineup by 2019 and subsequently move to more competitive seven-to-eight-year product life-cycles. But as aggressively as Volvo is pursuing this renewal of its core models, they're not the only things Gothenburg has in store. Keep reading below to learn how Volvo's model line will flesh out over the coming years.

US could get Chinese Volvos soon, possibly Geely joint-venture subcompact?

After a little more than three years since Volvo was acquired by China's Geely, it was only a matter of time before products from this marriage started to show up in the US. Although nothing seems to be written in stone, Automotive News is reporting that the US could be getting Chinese-made Volvos sooner rather than later.
In speaking with AN, Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson said that Chinese Volvos could be exported to the US "fairly quickly," and while there was no word on any specific models being considered, the article points out that the S60 (shown above) is already being produced locally in China at a Volvo plant. Another possibility is the next-gen V40, which has reportedly received plenty of support from US Volvo dealers. Regardless of which model it is, Samuelsson doesn't seem too worried about a "Made in China" car receiving a negative reaction by US consumers, pointing to all the other Chinese products sold here.
On a global scale, AN is also reporting that Geely is working on a new subcompact platform co-developed with Volvo to compete against cars like the Honda Fit, Ford Fiesta and VW Polo. There is no word as to whether or not this Geely-branded model would be coming to the US, but just last year, we heard that the Chinese automaker is looking to break into the US market by 2016.