2000 Volvo V70 Xc All Wheel Drive Florida Car Must See 1 Owner Car on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Jaguar turns down offers to join V8 Supercars, questions AMG, Volvo participation

Rumors have swirled in recent weeks that Jaguar may be the next manufacturer to join the V8 Supercars racing series, made popular in Australia but now well-known in other parts of the world as well. Sadly, Jag's participation is not to be. In fact, it would be "insane," according to Jaguar Land Rover Asia Pacific Managing Director David Blackhall, for it to accept either of the two offers it has received to bring Jaguar into V8 Supercars.
Not only is Jaguar not interested in entering V8 Supercars, says Blackhall, it also fails to understand the recent entries from AMG and Volvo. "I don't know what it does for AMG to get flogged by a V8 Commodore week after week, but it's their brand, their issue. And the same thing will happen to Volvo to be honest."
Judging by Blackhall's statements to motoring.com.au, after not-so-serious consideration, the automaker decided the monetary commitment it would take to compete for wins would be more than any potential exposure would be worth, despite the fact that Jaguar has a 5.0-liter V8 to go along with what would seem to be a tailor-made rear-wheel-drive chassis. For what it's worth, one offer would have had Jaguar putting its name across an engine made by someone else, an option that was flatly turned down.

Vehicles awarded IIHS Top Safety Pick awards skyrockets for 2015 [w/video]

By practically every measure, passenger vehicles in the US are continuing to get safer. With the year rapidly coming to an end, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is releasing its annual list tallying of the scores for the latest vehicles to see how they compare to last year. Judging by the agency's evaluations, the numbers look quite positive. According to the institute, 71 vehicles earned either the Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ rating so far in its testing for 2015. Among the latest winners, there have been 33 TSP+ awards and 38 TSP medalists. That's a healthy increase over the 22 TSP+ and 17 TSP grades in 2014. The figures appear even more impressive when you consider that it keeps getting harder to earn the + designation. In the latest round of testing, a vehicle must offer some form of front crash prevention automatic braking to get the mark. Previously, just a warning to drivers was necessary. This list also illustrates the ways that automakers adapt to new testing procedures. In 2013 there were 117 TSP ratings and 13 TSP+ awards. Then, the IIHS mandated that to be a safety pick, a model had to score Good in the institute's four crash tests, plus a Good or Acceptable in the small overlap front test. That brought a plunge in 2014 to just 17 TSP grades. With the numbers climbing again, companies apparently have deciphered how to perform better. Some brands especially stood out on this year's list. The IIHS praised Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and Acura for offering standard front crash prevention systems on some models. Subaru received at least one of the awards for all seven of its models. Toyota also had seven, and the Honda brand did too – though the institute counts the two- and four-door versions of the Civic and Accord separately. Check out the full announcement below and a video about this year's winners. The full list can be viewed, here. Safety gains ground: More vehicles earn top honors from IIHS The number of vehicles earning either of the Institute's two awards has jumped to 71 from 39 this time last year, giving consumers more choices for optimum protection in crashes. The number of winners in the top tier - TOP SAFETY PICK+ - has increased by 11 for 2015, despite a tougher standard for front crash prevention. "This is the third year in a row that we are giving automakers a tougher challenge to meet," says IIHS President Adrian Lund.

Volvo EX30 endures a side impact crash test with an EX90

Before Volvo launched the EX90, the Swedish automaker — already known as a pioneer in safety — repeatedly stressed how much work it had done to raise the bar for safety in its new electric SUV. Almost every new release included lines like, "The standard safety in the Volvo EX90 is also higher than any Volvo car before it," and "The Volvo EX90 has an invisible shield of safety enabled by our latest sensing technology, inside and outside." But these focused on the car's electronic suite of sensors and cameras watching everything from the road ahead and behind to the driver's state of fatigue. The company did the same during the launch of the EX30, writing that its new compact electric vehicle protects all occupants "through state-of-the-art restraint technology, as well as top-notch structural design that fulfills our ambitious in-house safety requirements — designed to prepare our cars for various real-world scenarios." To prove a point about the safety of the EX30, Volvo's in-house crash-test lab performed a side impact test, running its largest car, the EX90, into the side of its smallest, the EX30.  We don't get to see any interior view of the EX30 during the test or afterward. In an Automotive News Europe video about the crash and the results, Lotta Jakobsson from the Volvo Cars Safety Center says the data showed that the two "small-sized females" sitting on the struck side "were well protected" in the crash, with minimal infliction of injury. The physical design of both cars helps make this happen. The EX30 was designed to disperse all of its forces around the structure of the car for "balanced interaction" during an event. That's pretty standard stuff. On the EX90, a piece of the lower front structure juts ahead of the vehicle's primary safety structure. As ANE Managing Editor Doug Bolduc puts it, that lower structure is "specifically designed to help it absorb a lot of the power of a crash with a smaller vehicle ... that is to not only provide protection to the passengers of the EX90 but also to provide protection to the passengers of the EX30." The result is "less damage than you might have expected from the larger car onto the smaller car."  Check out the vid and for Jakobsson's take on how current trends in structural, passive, and active safety won't rid the world of crashes, but they are reducing injuries while at the same time making crashes less common.