Buckle up! Volvo's new 'super seatbelt' could transform car safety

Volvo has unveiled a new advance in car seatbelt technology, which it says can better protect passengers by adapting to specific situations – something that wasn’t possible before.

Named the ‘multi-adaptive safety belt’, the firm’s latest safety innovation differs from traditional pre-tensioning seatbelts because it uses the car’s built-in sensors (accelerometers etc) to ascertain the type and severity of a collision. 

By analysing this data, alongside other variables such as the height, weight and posture of the person wearing it, the seatbelt will pretension itself to the optimum amount, keeping occupants safe in heavy crashes and avoiding injury in more minor bumps.

The examples Volvo provides are that a larger occupant in a more severe collision would receive a high pretension load in order to avoid causing a head injury, while a smaller, younger passenger in a smaller crash would be subjected to less force via the seatbelt to avoid damaging their ribs.

Asa Haglund, head of Volvo’s safety centre in Gothenburg, said the new innovation marks “[yet] another milestone for automotive safety, and [is] a great example of how we leverage real-time data with the ambition to help save millions of more lives”.

Volvo invented the three-point safety belt we all know today almost 70 years ago. This is a fact the firm is incredibly proud of, going as far as marking all of its seatbelt tongues with ‘1959’ – the year the technology was first introduced.

The innovation doesn’t stop at the multi-adaptive belt, though, because Volvo says it intends to continuously improve and refine its software over time utilising data collected from owners and over-the-air updates.

Car safety geeks (and reckless drivers) won’t have long to wait to test this new technology out because it’s set to debut in the upcoming Volvo EX60 electric SUV next year.

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