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Volvo vows to charge subscriptions only for major updates

Volvo Cars Chief Operating Officer Bjorn Annwall   BMW veered into a public-relations mess this year when it started charging car owners monthly subscription fees to warm their behinds. Volvo Car won’t be making similar moves. “If you are to charge for software updates, it must be a step change in consumer benefit,” VolvoÂ’s Chief Operating Officer Bjorn Annwall said in an interview this month. “We will not ask people who have bought a car for 1 million kronor ($96,500) to pay another 10 kronor to get extra heat in the seat.” While BMW will no doubt have other manufacturers follow in its footsteps — Mercedes-Benz recently started asking buyers of its EQ electric vehicles to fork over $1,200 a year to unlock quicker acceleration, for example — the auto world has started to second-guess just how much money there is to be made from the rise of software within their hardware-intensive business. In a 91-page deep dive into the topic last month, analysts at UBS pegged the total addressable market at $700 billion by 2030. ThatÂ’s no pittance, but pales in comparison to the $2 trillion opportunity they anticipated previously. Annwall sees Volvo generating little additional revenue from software until mid-decade. Only if major upgrades become available — a self-driving mode, for example — would Volvo charge extra. “You donÂ’t have to hold the steering wheel — now thatÂ’s a step change in user benefit.” Annwall was speaking at the opening of VolvoÂ’s new tech hub in Stockholm, where the manufacturer builds software for selling and marketing cars online. The company, which last month unveiled a battery-powered sport utility vehicle to succeed its gasoline-era flagship, intends to cease making combustion cars by the end of the decade. ItÂ’s going to be an uphill push: EVs made up just under a fifth of the companyÂ’s shipments last month. Bloomberg spoke with Annwall about VolvoÂ’s tech efforts, the software issues that have plagued some of its competitors and the ongoing supply-chain issues holding back the industry. Here are highlights from the conversation, which have been edited for length and clarity: Large automakers including Volkswagen have had problems with their car software. Have you experienced similar obstacles? I wonÂ’t hide the fact that we have had some problems with our software in the car as well. But weÂ’ve been good at correcting them fairly quickly.

Swedish man charged with spying on Volvo for Russia

STOCKHOLM — Sweden has indicted a 47-year-old man suspected of handing information to a Russian diplomat, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said on Monday. The prosecutor said in a statement that the man, who was not identified, had worked as a consultant at several Swedish companies, where he had illegally obtained and sold information, placing the country's security at risk. Public service broadcaster SVT said the man was Swedish. "While a consultant at his former workplaces, I allege that he obtained material with the purpose of providing information to a foreign power, in this case Russia," prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said. "The man was apprehended whilst meeting a Russian diplomat where he had just received 27,800 Swedish crowns ($3,360) from the diplomat." SVT reported that the man being charged had passed on information from automaker Volvo Cars and truckmaker Scania. A Scania spokesman confirmed that the man had worked as a consultant at the firm, while Volvo Cars declined to comment. The authority said the man had transferred material from computers to memory sticks as well as photographing the screen of his work computer, adding the crime could carry a sentence of up to six years in prison. "The crime is serious and, if convicted, the suspect could expect a lengthy sentence," Ljungqvist said.

Volvos will brake for bicyclists with new detection technology

Anyone who pedals a bicycle knows that one of the biggest dangers to riders is a motorized vehicle - Volvo estimates that nearly 50 percent of all cyclists killed in European traffic have collided with a car. In the United States alone, 618 riders lost their lives in bicycle/motor vehicle crashes in 2010, and the number of injuries surpassed 52,000.
To help drop those numbers, Volvo has just announced Cyclist Detection with full auto brake - a technology that detects and automatically applies a vehicle's brakes when a cyclist swerves in front of a moving car. The basic components of the system include a radar unit integrated into the front grille, a camera fitted in front of the interior rear-view mirror and a central control unit. The radar is tasked with seeing obstacles in front of the vehicle and calculating distance, while the camera is responsible to determine what the object is. The central control unit, with rapid processing capabilities, monitors and evaluates the situation.
The technology, which will be sold bundled with its Pedestrian Detection and called Pedestrian and Cyclist Detection, will automatically apply full braking when both the radar and camera confirm a pedestrian or cyclist are in the immediate path of the vehicle. According to the automaker, the technology will be offered on the Volvo V40, S60, V60, XC60, V70, XC70 and S80 models from mid-May in 2013.