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Volvo Cars is introducing an app that analyses driving behaviour and provides motorists with personalised coaching aimed at encouraging safer driving and potentially lowering insurance premiums.Called Safety Coach, the optional app uses information such as braking, acceleration, cornering and speed to provide feedback through the vehicle’s infotainment system and the Volvo Cars mobile app.Unlike systems that primarily assess driving smoothness or fuel efficiency, Safety Coach evaluates driving behaviour from a safety and collision-risk perspective. It is designed to encourage more predictable driving by helping motorists avoid abrupt braking, acceleration and cornering, as well as inappropriate speeds that could surprise other road users.The system is intended to do more than simply score drivers. It provides personalised coaching in real time to help motorists change their driving habits over time.Each driver receives a dynamic Safety Coach score based on their behaviour. Volvo says the insights are informed by decades of real-world safety data gathered by the company.The app is being introduced initially in Sweden and Norway, where owners of most Volvo models from model year 2020 onwards will be able to download it.Customers in those markets will also have the option of sharing their driving data with insurance provider Volvia in exchange for access to usage-based insurance offers. Drivers must first opt in to use Safety Coach and can separately choose whether to share their data with an affiliated insurer.Volvo plans to expand the app to the Americas and selected European markets, with insurance-related offers also planned as part of the wider rollout. Volvo Cars South Africa says availability in the country will be communicated separately as the system is rolled out on a market-by-market basis.Safety Coach was developed in collaboration with Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), which provides the algorithm used to calculate each driver’s score.CMT says data from its safe-driving programmes shows that drivers who participate in such programmes typically reduce behaviours including speeding and hard braking.The initial rollout covers Volvo models equipped with Google Android-based infotainment systems from model year 2020 onwards, including the XC40, EX40, EC40, S60, V60, XC60, EX60, XC90, V90, EX90 and ES90.Availability will vary by model and market.
