In 2008 Volvo Cars set out its vision - by 2020 no one should be killed or seriously injured in or by a new Volvo car. Today, 2020 is very close and it is possible to assume most of the safety technologies that will likely be fitted in Volvo cars by then. The objective of the present study was to estimate how close to zero fatalities Volvo Cars can get in Sweden by 2020.

The Swedish Transport Administration (STA) carries out in-depth studies of all road fatalities in Sweden. Cases involving at least one modern Volvo car were extracted for the period 2010-2017 (MY 2010 and onwards, excluding the C30, S40 and V50 models) and analyzed retrospectively (n=62). The yearly average number of fatalities in Sweden during 2010-2017 was 2.8 for occupants in Volvo cars and 5.0 for either occupants in other vehicles or VRUs impacted by Volvo cars, respectively.

The actual fitment of safety technologies was investigated among the Volvo cars involved in these crashes. The basic assumption was that by 2020 the boundary conditions in each crash would be unchanged, but the Volvo car would be a MY 2020 and therefore would be fitted with the same safety technologies as the V60 MY 2019. An assessment was then made of whether a certain technology could have prevented the crash or substantially reduced the crash severity in 2020. Cases involving extreme violations such as excessive speeding, were included in the analysis but presented separately. It was also assumed that no major improvements in crashworthiness would be introduced between the analyzed Volvo models and Volvo cars MY 2020.

The analysis showed that almost half of the fatalities in and by Volvo cars could have been prevented with the safety technologies fitted on the V60 MY 2019. It was also found that most of the fatalities that could not be prevented with a V60 MY 2019, occurred in crash scenarios where at least one safety technology was relevant, although the current performance was estimated not to be sufficient to prevent the fatality. Only three cases occurred in crash scenarios without any relevant existing safety technology.

It should be kept in mind that that these results were based on retrospectively upgrading already relatively safe cars to the following generation. This suggests that reducing fatalities by almost 50% through the introduction of only one new car generation would be a very impressive achievement. It is also important to note that these results were based on the assumption that the road infrastructure, speed limit and crash opponents would be unchanged. Clearly, taking safety improvements in the road infrastructure and other vehicles into account would result in an even higher reduction of fatalities in and by Volvo cars by 2020.

In conclusion, regardless of whether Volvo’s vision will be achieved by 2020 or not, it is very important to set road safety targets, develop new solutions and follow up the results, also for a car manufacturer.