Volvo Cars is introducing Safety Coach, an optional app that scores how you drive and feeds tips back through the infotainment screen and the Volvo Cars mobile app. It launches this month in Sweden and Norway, where drivers can also opt into a usage-based insurance offer from Volvia if they share their driving data. Most Volvo models from the 2020 model year onwards are covered, with the United States and further European markets to follow.

Volvo Cars is adding a new layer to its safety strategy this month, and it is aimed at the driver rather than the car. Safety Coach is an optional app that analyses everyday driving behaviour — braking, acceleration and cornering — and turns it into personalised feedback delivered through the car’s infotainment screen and the Volvo Cars mobile app.

A personal score, updated as you drive

Each driver receives their own dynamic Safety Coach score, which the company says is intended to encourage steady improvement rather than deliver a one-off verdict. According to Volvo Cars, the tips behind the score draw on the manufacturer’s own real-world crash and safety research, built up over decades.

The underlying scoring comes from Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), which Volvo Cars describes as the world’s largest telematics and AI company for safer mobility. CMT’s algorithm generates the Safety Coach score.

“Our research shows that many accidents involve some form of surprise. What helps prevent that is predictability,” says Mikael Ljung Aust, driver behaviour expert at Volvo Cars. “Staying within expected speed ranges and avoiding abrupt manoeuvres makes your driving easier for others to anticipate and reduces the risk of a collision. Supporting safe driver behaviours is a key piece of the puzzle we need to solve to reach zero collisions, and tools like Safety Coach can help turn these insights into safer everyday habits.”

Insurance rewards tied to the data

The commercial hook is the insurance link. In Sweden and Norway, Volvo Cars customers will soon be able to take up a usage-based offer from insurer Volvia if they choose to share their driving data — opening the door, the company says, to further rewards for safer driving. Similar insurance-related offers are planned as the app reaches the United States and other European markets.

William V. Powers, Co-Founder and CEO of CMT, points to the firm’s existing programmes: “Insights from CMT’s safe driving programmes show that when people engage in safe driving programmes like Safety Coach, the frequency of speeding events and hard braking typically are significantly reduced. This is the kind of behaviour change Volvo customers can use to build safer habits over time, and be rewarded with personalised insurance benefits.”

Two separate opt-ins

Volvo Cars stresses that privacy and transparency were built into the design. Drivers first opt in to use Safety Coach at all, and then opt in a second time if they want their data shared with affiliated insurance companies in exchange for usage-based premiums. Data management stays in the driver’s hands.

What it means

Usage-based insurance is not new — telematics dongles and smartphone-based policies have been around for years — but building the scoring into the car’s own infotainment system removes the extra hardware and the separate app most schemes rely on. For Volvo, it is also a way to extend its safety narrative into cars that are already on the road, rather than only into new models.

Facts: Volvo Safety Coach

  • What it is: optional in-car app scoring braking, acceleration and cornering
  • Where the feedback appears: infotainment screen and Volvo Cars mobile app
  • Scoring partner: Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT)
  • First markets: Sweden and Norway, from this month
  • Next markets: United States and other European markets, with insurance offers planned
  • Insurance partner at launch: Volvia (Sweden and Norway), usage-based, data sharing optional
  • Eligible cars: model year 2020 onwards with Google Android-based infotainment — XC40, EX40, EC40, S60, V60, XC60, EX60, XC90, V90, EX90 and ES90

Volvo Cars notes that timing of availability may vary by model and market.

Source: news.cision.com