2024 Volvo Xc90 B6 Awd Plus Bright Theme 6 Passenger on 2040-cars

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Junkyard Gem: 2012 Volvo C30 T5 with 6-speed manual

Every year, fewer new vehicles are available in the United States with manual transmissions (though the ancient five-on-the-floor still exists… for now). American Volvo buyers preferred three-pedal setups in their cars later than some, though even they had mostly fallen out of love with manuals by the time the 1990s dawned. Still, some stubborn holdouts kept demand for the once-beloved gearbox technology alive here, until Geely-owned Volvo axed the manual transmission for the U.S. market after the 2013 model year. The final three-pedal Volvo sold here was the C30, and I've found one of those rare machines in a New Orleans car graveyard. The C30 was a cool-looking two-door hatchback that borrowed some styling influences from the the beloved 1800ES shooting brake. The biggest problem with it in the United States was that two-doors and hatchbacks in general no longer enticed many potential buyers into signing on the line which is dotted. The U.S.-market 2012 C30 came with a 2.5-liter turbocharged straight-five engine rated at 227 horsepower and 236 pound-feet, and owners could buy the Polestar Performance software upgrade to increase those numbers to 250 horses and 273 pound-feet. That made for a respectably quick machine with its curb weight of just 3,200 pounds. The six-on-the-floor manual was base equipment; if you wanted the five-speed automatic, the cost was $1,250 more ($1,711 in 2024 dollars). This is a base T5 model, so its MSRP was $24,950. That's about $34,159 after inflation. The C30 was discontinued after the 2013 model year, after many years of underwhelming sales numbers here. This one looked to have been in very nice cosmetic condition when it arrived here, so we can assume that it suffered some costly mechanical malfunction. There's more to life than a Volvo. That's why you drive one. There was an English-language version of this ad, but I prefer the Swedish one. The previous commercial dared to show a manual transmission, but the car in this ad has the slushbox. Is it ugly or is it beautiful?

Volvo offers up more details on 2015 XC90 and its new infotainment system

We have more details on the 2015 Volvo XC90 and the all-new, touch-heavy infotainment system that will debut with it. An expansion of the Sensus system, as we've shown you before, we now know the new system won't only sport a large, vertically oriented touchscreen, but a head-up display and the ability to manage the systems via wheel-mounted buttons.
Key to the entire experience are the large, portrait-oriented touchscreen, a head-up display and the thumb controls you can see on the face of the steering wheel in the image above. Volvo is claiming that this combination will be easier to use and, fittingly for the Swedish manufacturer, safer.
"Using the screen is so logical that it will become part of your muscle memory very quickly," said Dr. Peter Mertens, Volvo's senior vice president of research and development. "Information, navigation and media are high up and easy to check. The phone controls, application icons and climate controls are located low, comfortable to reach and touch. All of this logic is based on extensive usability and user experience research and the latest technology."

How Volvo is going greener, according to sustainability chief Henrik Green

STOCKHOLM — This week, Volvo unveiled its new flagship electric vehicle, the EX90 three-row SUV. ItÂ’s not just a look at a product weÂ’ll see come to market in 2024, but a glimpse at the approach Volvo is taking to become more sustainable as it aims to go all-electric by 2030 and carbon-neutral by 2040. After the unveiling of the EX90, we had the opportunity to speak with Henrik Green, VolvoÂ’s advanced technology and sustainability officer, as part of a roundtable discussion about the brandÂ’s climate strategy moving forward. Part of the strategy is accountability and transparency. In an industry where sensitive materials like cobalt and lithium can be environmentally, socially and geopolitically problematic, traceability is paramount. Volvo will use blockchain technology — the same sort of secure ledger tech that makes cryptocurrency possible — to trace cobalt, lithium and nickel from their very origins in the earth all the way to the EX90s that roll off the factory floor. Green said he expects that traceability to expand to more materials, but those three are what Volvo can commit to today. Green also predicts a time when “you as a consumer should be able to see, ‘Here, in my app, this is the car I bought, this is where my nickel came from thatÂ’s in my car.’” While step one is improving transparency, “the next step is — this is much more long-term — how can we affect the industry to source from the most sustainable sources as possible?” And that leads us to recycling. A circular economy is the goal, where raw materials are used minimally, replaced by materials sourced from old cars, batteries, electronics and the like. But that depends on the first generations of electric cars fulfilling their lifecycles before they can be recycled. And obviously the better the longevity of products like batteries, the longer this will take. “Unfortunately, it has this built-in time lag of putting batteries out there that live until they need to be replaced, and then we will get the material back.” Partners are beginning to scout for those recyclable materials from sources like non-automotive electronics, “but the massive volume of car batteries will not be accessible until these cars have been on the road 10, 15 or more years.” But recyclability is one of the main factors Volvo looks for when partnering with companies like Northvolt, with whom Volvo is building a factory and R&D center in Gothenburg, Sweden.