Yahoo Autos Polestar Refuses Speed Limiters, in "You're Not My Real Dad" Break with Volvo's Latest Safety Initiative
Volvo announced this week that it will limit the speed of all its production vehicles to 112 mph, starting with the 2021 model year.
A Polestar spokesman told C/D that the performance-oriented brand will not be following suit.
The decision underscores the Polestar brand's independence.
Rebelling against authority is a key component of a healthy childhood and adolescence, and some of us, uh, I mean, people who are definitely not me, have turned it into a lifelong passion. So when Volvo recently created all kinds of hub-and-bubbery over the announcement that it will speed-limit its cars to 112 mph, we wondered whether the automaker's recently adopted Polestar division would blindly follow suit or show a little juvenile defiance. We queried both companies, and while Volvo hasn't yet replied to our questions regarding the nuts and bolts of the speed-limiting decision, Polestar confirmed to us at the Geneva auto show that it will not be adhering to the parent company's decision to put the brakes on all the fun.
Specifically, Polestar's spokesperson told us that it "can confirm that Polestar will not be speed-limiting its cars. That wouldn't fit our performance ethos." Spoken with the condescension of a genuine teen. Polestar appears to be a kindred spirit.
This is particularly good news as the recently revealed Polestar 2 EV is said to be capable of extracting sub-five-second zero-to-60-mph times from the combined 402 horsepower produced by its electric motors.
Volvo's announcement regarding limiting the speed of all its production vehicles to 112 mph starting with the 2021 model year came earlier this week. Håkan Samuelsson, Volvo's president and CEO, was quoted as saying: "While a speed limitation is not a cure-all, it’s worth doing if we can even save one life. We want to start a conversation about whether carmakers have the right or maybe even an obligation to install technology in cars that changes their driver's behavior."
Samuelsson added that the ability to deactivate the limiter for markets such as Germany, where parts of the autobahn still have unrestricted speed limits, is a possibility. Volvo is also exploring using geofencing to automatically limit speeds around schools and hospitals, and the automaker is putting on a safety conference in Sweden later this month to discuss this and related issues.
It's worth noting that the European Parliament has moved to require the fitting of Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) devices on all new cars from 2022. This could just be Volvo's attempt to get the news out ahead of that decision.
('You Might Also Like',)
