The Only Volvo In America To Achieve The IIHS’s Most Coveted Award in 2024

The name Volvo was once synonymous with safety. If you wanted a car that could keep you in one piece in just about any bang-up, you just bought a Volvo and didn’t think twice about it. That’s still the case, although with a trimmed down lineup – and brand-new Volvo models on the way – there’s just one model that’s made it to the very top of the IIHS’s safety scoring.

The IIHS’s Top Safety Pick Plus (or Top Safety Pick+) award is the authority’s highest honor – and just one Volvo model was awarded the title in the midsize luxury SUV category. Let’s see what makes it so special, and have a look at the other models that come in just below the superior rating.

The IIHS’s Top Safety Pick awards are given to vehicles that perform best in the agency’s evaluations for safety within its respective size category. To earn a Top Safety Pick+ award, cars need to score top marks in the small overlap front and updated side test, with Acceptable or Good allowed for the updated moderate overlap front, standard headlights, and pedestrian front crash prevention test.

The Volvo SUV With The Top Honors Is…

2024 Volvo XC90

Other key facts:

• The Volvo XC90 scored an Acceptable for head/neck injury measures, and for chest injury measures for rear passengers in the updated moderate overlap front test
• Driver torso injury measures scored an Acceptable in the updated side impact test
• Rear passenger injury measures for the torso and pelvis earned Acceptable ratings in the updated side test
• Headlights earned an Acceptable rating owing to limited low beam visibility, although they “never exceeded glare limits”
• Child safety anchors earned an Acceptable rating overall for some of the anchors being too deep in the seat, and difficult to identify at a glance

As the biggest SUV in the Volvo stable, the XC90 needs to be safe to keep your precious cargo in one piece. The SUV has earned a Top Safety Pick+ every single year since 2020, and before that, it earned a standard Top Safety Pick in 2019. Going back even further, it earned a Top Safety Pick in 2017, and a Top Safety Pick+ in 2016.

The second-gen Volvo XC90 launched in 2015 for the 2016 model year, so the current iteration of the SUV has taken a safety award home for every single model year except for 2018, when it earned a solid string of overall Good ratings in its crash test, but came up short with Acceptable/Marginal headlights and Acceptable child safety anchors. The SUV’s front crash prevention features earned a Superior rating for 2018, but this has been downgraded to Acceptable with the IIHS tightening their criteria and emphasizing more sophisticated forward collision avoidance systems going forward.

What Does The NHTSA Have To Say About The 2024 Volvo XC90?

The 2024 Volvo XC90 earned a five-star overall rating from the NHTSA. The NHTSA awarded the XC90 a perfect score in every category except for rollover, where it scored four stars out of a possible five. This is effectively a perfect score for an ICE-powered SUV, and their top-heavy nature makes them more prone to rollover than sedans and coupes. The combustion-only models showed a 17.90% rollover risk, while the XC90 Recharge showed a 15.90% rollover risk, most likely owing to the heavy battery pack keeping the SUV grounded on sharp turns – but that car also earns a different safety rating from the IIHS.

Although recalls relate more to reliability than to safety, the one recall on file for the 2024 XC90 is relevant here. In December 2023, the NHTSA issued a notice for around 2,911 model affected by a second-row seatbelt that doesn’t buckle correctly. This pertains to models from 2015 though to 2024, and will naturally affect the safety of your occupants. Getting this recall addressed is as simple as taking your car into the dealer to have the bolts tightened.

Similarly, complaints for the 2024 XC90 may also be worth looking into, as safety can be impacted. There are just ten logged with the NHTSA at the time of writing:

• Drivers report a handful of electrical issues, including fuel doors refusing to open, backup camera and sensors failing, and, in one instance, a fleet of Volvos seeing random acceleration, engine revving, and shifting after the installation of GeoTab Telematics devices
• A driver reports their car failing to start, dying in the middle of traffic, and refusing to shift into neutral to be pushed out of the road
• A few drivers have reported that pressing the P button will not always engage the parking brake, as intended.

What Makes The Volvo XC90 So Safe?

The big Volvo is well specified with active and passive features, including seven airbags and the usual suspects that comprise stability and traction control. You also get adaptive cruise control, blind-spot information with cross-traffic alert, lane keep assist, oncoming lane mitigation, front and rear park assist, and traffic sign information. That’s all standard on the 2024 range, but the Plus trims upgrade with a 360-degree camera and side park assist, while the top Ultimate trims gets a graphical head-up display additionally.

Safety is at the core of everything we do at Volvo Cars. As part of our company’s longstanding commitment to safety, we constantly strive to raise safety levels. The Volvo XC90 reflects our safety legacy, and we are proud it was recognized by the IIHS given our shared dedication to the advancement of automotive safety with the goal of reducing traffic related deaths and injuries.

– Mike Cottone, Head of USA and Canada at Volvo Cars

Other 2024 Volvos And Where They Rank

While the Volvo XC90 is the only Volvo to earn a Top Safety Pick+ for 2024, it’s not the only Volvo to score an impressive safety rating. The 2024 XC90 Recharge – the plug-in hybrid version – earned a Top Safety Pick award, just one rung down. The same applies to the smaller XC60 crossover.

2024 Volvo XC90 Recharge

The Volvo XC90 Recharge’s crash test scores look a lot like those of the ICE-powered XC90, but the hybrid version of the car has yet to undergo the updated moderate overlap front test. By and large, the XC90 and the XC90 Recharge can be expected to earn the same scores in every category, but they need to be tested individually all the same, as the difference in weight introduces a whole new factor that needs to be tested for. To underscore this, over at the NHTSA, the XC90 Recharge scored the same as its non-hybrid counterpart.

2024 Volvo XC60

The XC60 scores highly for 2024 as well, with the side updated test, headlights, front crash prevention system, and child seat anchors earning Acceptable instead of Good. In the updated side test, the SUV earned an Acceptable for driver injury measures for the torso, Marginal for the pelvis, and Marginal for rear passenger pelvis injury measures. The NHTSA scores this model at five out of five for all tests except the rollover evaluation, for which it earns four out of five. The Recharge derivative has no NHTSA score, while the IIHS ranks it exactly the same as the regular model.

Conclusion: Volvos Are Still Safe, But The Criteria Has Changed

Checking with the models that didn’t quite make the cut, it’s easy to identify a pattern: they all turned in good, or mostly-good crash test ratings, while the safety feature scoring never rise above Acceptable, even as those same features were earning Good and Superior ratings just a year or two ago. So, what happened? Well, a big part of this is that the IIHS tightened their criteria concerning front crash prevention technology, and Volvo is still playing catch-up to brands like Toyota and Hyundai in this regard.

Give it a year or two for Volvo to update their safety tech, and the legendary Swedish automaker may be on top of the game once more. But, for now, the Insurance Institute’s emphasis on more advanced front collision avoidance has resulted in a lot of safety leaders trailing behind while the more forward-thinking companies take the lead.

Sources:
IIHS
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NHTSA