Cars have become expensive rolling gadgets, full of screens, speakers, and sensors — but are they actually good gadgets? In our new series, ScreenDrive, we’ll review cars just like any other device, starting with the basics of what they’re like to use.
If you know anything about Volvo, you know this: it makes safe cars. The company has spent decades working on that goal and making sure you know about it. Volvo invented the three-point seatbelt in 1959 and has led the way in many safety features since. Say what you will about their aesthetics (as somebody of Swedish heritage myself, I like their boxy charm), but you can’t really knock a Volvo on safety.
If you know anything about using screens while driving, you know they’re distracting and not safe. And yet the very luxurious Volvo V90 Cross Country wagon I drove from Oakland to Palm Springs last month has an interface that’s almost 100 percent screen. Where other carmakers augment the screen with various knobs and extra buttons to control the interface, Volvo has recently gone nearly all-in on touch.
A gigantic and potentially distracting touchscreen as the primary interface doesn’t seem like it belongs in a car with the primary selling point of protecting the people inside it. Yet, after just a couple hours of familiarizing myself with Volvo’s new and much-improved interface for its “Sensus” system, I felt totally safe using it while cruising down the desert freeway at 75 mph.
Although Volvo hasn’t gone as far as Tesla in pushing nearly everything into the screen, it’s gone quite a bit further than most other carmakers. The 9.3-inch portrait screen completely dominates the dashboard, flanked by air vents on the sides, and a pretty simple array of buttons and a volume knob underneath.