Volvo invented the three-point seat belt 67 years ago; now it has improved it

A Volvo seat belt — No other automaker has the same commitment to road safety as Volvo. Credit: Volvo Cars

How it works

Basically, a seat belt is made up of a retractor mechanism, buckle assembly, webbing material, and a pretensioner device. Of these parts, the pretensioner is the one tasked with tightening the seatbelt webbing in a collision. As such, it reduces the forward movement of the passenger before the airbag deploys at speeds of up to 200 mph (321 km/h). All of these parts remain the same for Volvo’s newest seat belt iteration. It’s the tiny brain attached to the assemblage that’s different.

Volvo’s new central computing system, HuginCore (named after a bird in Norse mythology), runs the EX60 with more than 250 trillion operations per second. It has been developed in-house, together with its partners Google, Nvidia, and Qualcomm.

“With the HuginCore system we can collect a lot of data and make decisions in the car instantly and combine that with the belt’s ability to choose different load levels,” says Åsa Haglund, head of the Volvo Cars Safety Center. “A box of possibilities opens up where you can detect what type of crash it is and who is in the car and choose a more optimal belt force.”

Volvo crash test dummies — Every day, dummies like these get smashed to make Volvos safer. Credit: Volvo Cars

Load limiters control how much force the safety belt applies to the human body during a crash. Volvo’s new system pushes the load-limiting profiles from three to 11, marking a major increase in adjustability. It’s kind of like an audio system, Ljung Aust muses. A sound system with 10 discrete steps up the volume ladder offers varied profiles along the way, while one with only one or two steps addresses fewer preference levels.

Using data from exterior, interior, and crash sensors, the car reacts to a collision in milliseconds—less than the blink of an eye, Ljung Aust says. In the case of a crash, it’s critical to hold the hips into the car, he explains, but the upper body should fold forward in a frontal crash in a nice, smooth motion to meet the airbag. Otherwise, the body is exposed to the same force as the slowing car.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/how-volvos-new-adaptive-seat-belts-will-reduce-injuries-during-a-crash/

Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee

No Tesla sales in California

Tesla was told that if it couldn’t resolve the deceptive marketing within those 60 days, the sales suspension would take effect. That would be bad for the automaker, as California is far and away its largest market in the US, albeit one that is shrinking each quarter. Having to suspend sales entirely in the state would be disastrous. Some had speculated that Tesla could change Autopilot’s name to something less misleading, but the company chose a more drastic approach.

Now, if you want your new Tesla to steer itself—while you pay attention to the road—you will have to pay for FSD. Until the middle of February, that can be done for a one-time fee of $8,000. But starting on February 14, that option goes away, too, and the sole choice will be a $99/month FSD subscription.

But probably not for very long. Last night, Musk revealed on his social media platform that “the $99/month for supervised FSD will rise as FSD’s capabilities improve. The massive value jump is when you can be on your phone or sleeping for the entire ride (unsupervised FSD).”

The quest for recurring revenue streams is becoming something of a holy grail in the automotive industry as OEMs that previously treated their customers as a single sale now hope to make themselves more attractive to investors by encouraging customers to give them regular payouts.

This may have contributed to General Motors’ decision to drop Apple CarPlay and Android Automotive. BMW has also experimented with subscription services. Tesla’s stock price remains so high that such games are probably unnecessary here, but with falling profit margins, declining sales, and the loss of emissions credits to bolster the bottom line, one can see why regular cash infusions from Tesla drivers would be desirable.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/tesla-wants-recurring-revenue-discontinues-autopilot-in-favor-of-fsd/

2026 Lucid Air Touring review: This feels like a complete car now

The curved display floats above the textile-covered dash, and the daylight visible between them helps the cabin’s sense of spaciousness, even without a panoramic glass roof. A stowable touchscreen display lower down on the center console is where you control vehicle, climate, seat, and lighting settings, although there are also physical controls for temperature and volume on the dash. The relatively good overall ergonomics take a bit of a hit from the steeply raked A pillar, which creates a blind spot for the driver.

For all the Air Touring’s power, it isn’t a car that goads you into using it all. In fact, I spent most of the week in the gentlest setting, Smooth. It’s an easy car to drive slowly, and the rather artificial feel of the steering at low speeds means you probably won’t take it hunting apices on back roads. I should note, though, that each drive mode has its own steering calibration.

On the other hand, as a daily driver and particularly on longer drives, the Touring did a fine job. Despite being relatively low to the ground, it’s easy to get into and out of. The rear seat is capacious, and the ride is smooth, so passengers will enjoy it. Even more so if they sit up front—Lucid has some of the best (optional, $3,750) massaging seats in the business, which vibrate as well as kneading you. There’s a very accessible 22 cubic foot (623 L) trunk as well as a 10 cubic foot (283 L) frunk, so it’s practical, too.

Future-proof?

Our test Air was fitted with Lucid’s DreamDrive Pro advanced driver assistance system ($6,750), which includes a hands-free “level 2+” assist that requires you to pay attention to the road ahead but which handles accelerating, braking, and steering. Using the turn signal tells the car to perform a lane change if it’s safe, and I found it to be an effective driver assist with an active driver monitoring system (which uses a gaze-tracking camera to ensure the driver is doing their part).

https://arstechnica.com/features/2026/01/2026-lucid-air-touring-review-this-feels-like-a-complete-car-now/

Here’s Volvo’s new EX60 $60,000 electric midsize SUV

Next up is the P10 AWD. This uses an electric motor for each axle, with a combined 503 hp (375 kW) and 524 lb-ft (710 Nm). The 0–60 time drops to 4.4 seconds, and thanks to a larger battery (91 kWh net/95 kWh gross), there’s a bit more range: 320 miles on the 20-inch wheels, with the same 10-mile range hit for each inch you increase them. Peak DC charging rates are higher for this battery, though—up to 370 kW, but again with 18-minute 10–80 charge times under ideal conditions.

Then there’s the P12 AWD, which ups the ante to 670 hp (500 kW) and 583 lb-ft (790 Nm). The dash to 60 mph drops to 3.8 seconds, and the battery gets a little larger at 112 kWh usable (117 kWh gross). Peak charging rates are still 370 kW, but 10–80 percent takes slightly longer at 19 minutes as a result of the greater capacity. Range for this version is 400 miles (644 km) for 20-inch wheels, 390 miles (627 km) for 21-inch wheels, and 375 miles (603 km) for 22-inch wheels.

“The new, all-electric EX60 changes the game in terms of range, charging, and price and represents a new beginning for Volvo Cars and our customers,” said Volvo Cars CEO Håkan Samuelsson. “With this car, we remove all remaining obstacles for going electric. This fantastic new car is also a testament of what we are capable of at Volvo Cars, with an all-new product architecture introducing new key technologies—mega casting, cell-to-body, and core computing.”

Cross Country

The surprise of the reveal today was the EX60 Cross Country. “Cross Country” is Volvo’s badge for its models that have a little bit of adventure to them, with a 0.8-inch (20 mm) lifted suspension that raises another 20 mm if you option air springs, a wider track, wheel arch cladding, and underbody skid plates that all say, “I ain’t afraid of no unpaved forest road.”

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/heres-volvos-new-ex60-60000-electric-midsize-suv/

Feds give Tesla another five weeks to respond to FSD probe

The original request was sent to Tesla on December 3 with a deadline of January 19—next Monday—with penalties of up to $27,874 per day (to a maximum of $139.4 million) for not complying.

However, the winter holiday period ate up two weeks of the six-and-a-bit weeks, and the company has had to simultaneously prepare two other information requests for other ongoing NHTSA probes, one due today, another on January 23rd, and yet another on February 4, the company told NHTSA. Identifying all the complaints and reports will take more time, Tesla said, as it found 8,313 items when it searched for traffic violations, and it can only process 300 a day to see which ones are relevant.

Answering the remaining questions on NHTSA’s list would require the above to be completed first, so Tesla asked for and was granted an extension until February 23.

Meanwhile, Tesla has changed how its driver assist cash cow contributes to the bottom line. Until now, Tesla owners had the option of buying the system outright for (currently) $8,000. Now, CEO Elon Musk says that option will go away on February 14. From then on, if a Tesla owner wants FSD, they’ll have to pay a $99 monthly fee to use it.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/feds-give-tesla-another-five-weeks-to-respond-to-fsd-probe/

Ferrari doing what it does best: The 12Cilindri review

It has been nearly 80 years since Ferrari unleashed its first V12-powered sports car upon the world with the 125 S. In 1947, its debut year, the 125 S secured Ferrari’s first race victory, along with five other wins in the 14 events it competed in that season.

Although it was soon replaced by the 159 S, the success of the 125 S kick-started Ferrari’s storied history of producing some of the most desirable 12-cylinder performance cars known to man. And while the Italian automaker has come to embrace forced induction and electrification in recent years, its legacy of building stunning front-engine, rear-wheel drive machines with spectacular V12s stuffed into their engine bays continues with the 12Cilindri Spider.

Ferrari hasn’t shied away from leveraging cutting-edge technology in the development of its latest models, but the company also understands the value of a good throwback. As the successor to the 812 Superfast, the 12Cilindri boasts clever performance technologies, like a sophisticated active aero system and a four-wheel steering system that can manage each corner independently to enhance response, but it’s ultimately an homage to the heady days of late ’60s luxury grand touring. The exterior styling takes obvious inspiration from the 365 GTB Daytona, while its lack of all-wheel drive, turbocharging, and electric assistance bucks trends that have become nearly inescapable in modern performance cars.

Buy the engine, get the car for free?

Instead, Ferrari has deliberately prioritized the core principles that have defined its most enduring GT icons: elegant design, a meticulously engineered chassis, and a sensational naturally aspirated V12, the latter represented here by a 6.5 L dry-sump mill that delivers 819 hp (611 kW) and a soaring 9,500-rpm redline.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/driven-the-ferrari-12cilindri-spider-is-open-top-grand-touring-bliss/

The difficulty of driving an EV in the “most beautiful race in the world”

When a few owners stopped for coffee and pastries, we did too, and I sipped the best espresso doppio I’ve had in years. Talk about quintessential Italian life! But the reverie proved short-lived. In my overcaffeinated, sleep-deprived state, I soon made a math error that cost us a few seconds in the next average speed trial.

A Polestar 3 navigates tight Italian village streets — The view was usually stupendous. Credit: Polestar

After the first sector, we regrouped with the rest of the Green cars and got caught behind Ferraris driving interminably slowly on a gravel section right during a time trial. (Ahead of us, last year’s Green winner Mirco Magni sacrificed a whole stage to let a gap grow. Later, he explained that the penalty for missing the time by five seconds is the same as for five minutes, something we never located in the English rulebook translation.)

That night, we got a miraculous five hours of sleep, but I still woke up concerned about our rankings. Sure enough, we’d done well in scoring but also earned two “TC” penalties. I slipped behind the wheel of the Polestar, but today we decided to stop for espresso early in the morning, as we’d learned to enjoy ourselves the day before. This time, the vintage cars caught up with us, and I sipped my desperately needed caffeine while watching as a support crew swapped out fouled spark plugs on a Bugatti Type 37.

We then hustled to keep up with a veritable fleet of the open-wheel Bugattis and Alfa Romeos while driving up one of the most incredible mountain roads I’ve ever been on. In the Polestar, we could have easily sprinted away, but we instead sat transfixed by the sight, sound, and smell of tall tires squealing, engines roaring and belching smoke, and drivers and passengers leaning into turns as hard as possible. Really, these century-old cars drove harder than the support crews, eventually getting bound up into clumps on the tight roads west of Cervia.

https://arstechnica.com/features/2026/01/the-difficulty-of-driving-an-ev-in-the-most-beautiful-race-in-the-world/

Is 2026 the year buttons come back to cars? Crash testers say yes.

But why?

It’s helpful to know that the lack of physical buttons isn’t just a trend pushed by designers—the bean counters like it, too. It’s quicker—and therefore cheaper—during assembly to just fit a capacitive touch module that controls multiple settings or switches than it is to have individual buttons, each connected to a wiring loom. Which is why we’re seeing the controls for heating and cooling the interior, the headlights, seat heaters, and more move from knobs and dials and sliders and buttons to touch panels. Sometimes they’re standalone, sometimes they’re embedded along the bezels of the infotainment touchscreen. Sometimes they’re even their own touchscreen.

And they’re more distracting to use than physical buttons.

Like Euro NCAP, ANCAP does not require all functions to be physical buttons, lest all our cars look like the flight deck of a Boeing 747-400, or perhaps a first-generation Porsche Panamera. That won’t go nearly far enough for some, but it is at least a move in the right direction.

“From 2026, we’re asking car makers to either offer physical buttons for important driver controls like the horn, indicators, hazard lights, windscreen wipers and headlights, or dedicate a fixed portion of the cabin display screen to these primary driving functions,” it wrote in its guidance of what’s changed for 2026. Similarly, Europe is requiring turn signals, hazard lights, windshield wipers, the horn, and any SOS features like the EU’s eCall function.

Encouragingly, it looks like automakers are starting to take this to heart and are designing newer models accordingly. Porsche was an early ditcher of buttons after having previously used many, many of them (like the aforementioned Panamera), but as we found in our preview of the next Cayenne, real buttons are back.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/buttons-in-cars-australian-crash-testers-are-latest-to-require-them/

BMW’s first electric M car is coming in 2027—with one motor per wheel

Late last year, we drove BMW’s new iX3. It’s the first of a series of electric BMWs to use a newly developed platform, known as the “Neue Klasse.” Later this year, we’ll see the first fully electric version of the 3 Series when the i3 sedan debuts. And next year, BMW enthusiasts will finally find out what the brand’s M division—which infuses motorsport into the vehicles like few others—can do with an EV.

There have been M-tuned EVs before now, more powerful variants of the i4, iX, and i7. And each time we’ve driven them, BMW has been at pains to point out that these weren’t true M cars, not like the M3 or M5. Honestly, they weren’t better than the cheaper, less powerful versions, something that won’t be allowed for next year’s performance EV, which might be called something like the iM3, assuming the naming convention remains logic-based.

“The next generation of models are set to establish a new benchmark in the high-performance vehicle segment,” says Franciscus van Meel, managing director of BMW M GmbH. “With the latest generation of Neue Klasse technology, we are taking the BMW M driving experience to a new level and will inspire our customers with outstanding, racetrack-ready driving dynamics for everyday use.”

A BMW M Neue Klasse test car on ice — Will it be the iM3? For now, BMW is calling this the M Neue Klasse. Credit: BMW

Technology is the key to distinguishing the M EV from its more sedate siblings. The Neue Klasse platform hews to the software-defined vehicle trend, where a handful of powerful computers each control a wide array of functions, rather than dozens or hundreds of discrete electronic control units in black boxes each doing a single job. One computer handles infotainment, and another deals with automated driving and active safety systems. A third handles the relatively mundane but no less important job of climate control, plus the seats and doors and windows.

However, the important one here is called the Heart of Joy, which runs M-specific software, called BMW M Dynamic Performance Control. This offers an order of magnitude faster response in terms of the car’s electronic dynamic control compared to current M models, which is put to good use controlling the four electric motors that will propel the electric M.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/bmws-first-electric-m-car-is-coming-in-2027-with-one-motor-per-wheel/

This one could use less power: The Jeep Wagoneer S EV

It’s not really accurate to call the Wagoneer S Jeep’s first electric vehicle. For several years now, Europeans have been able to buy the Jeep Avenger, a subcompact crossover that will surely never see American roads. But it is the first electric Jeep designed for American consumption. It’s aimed at the highly competitive midsize SUV segment, which gets ever more crowded even as electrification faces a less certain future here. Indeed, the brand, along with its Stellantis sibling Chrysler, just shelved all its plug-in hybrids, discontinuing them just a few days ago.

Like the little Avenger, the Wagoneer S makes use of one of parent company Stellantis’ purpose-built EV platforms, one shared with the growly-sounding Dodge Charger. At 192.4 inches (4,886 mm) long, 74.8 inches (1,900 mm) wide, and 64.8 inches (1,645 mm) tall, it’s a little larger than cars like the BMW iX3 or Audi Q6 e-tron but a little smaller than domestically designed rivals like the Cadillac Lyriq and Acura ZDX, which have particularly long wheelbases.

I find it a rather handsome car, one that has to marry Jeep’s Wagoneer styling cues with as many wind-smoothing and air-shaping elements as possible. The way the rear wing juts out above the tailgate window reminds me of a ’90s rally hatchback, but it’s the product of the designers and the engineers working on drag reduction. The overall drag coefficient is 0.29, and since Jeep actually publishes the frontal area, too, I can tell you the more important CdA number—where drag is multiplied by the frontal area—is 8.67 sq ft (0.805 m²).

A Jeep Wagoneer S drives away from the camera — The rear wing keeps the airflow from forming a turbulent wake as it departs the roof. Credit: Jeep

Between the wheels lives a 100.5 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, which translates to 294 miles (473 km) of range, according to the EPA test cycle. When Ars first drove the Wagoneer S in early 2025, it was the more powerful (more expensive) Launch Edition. In mid-December, we spent a week with the $65,200 Wagoneer S Limited, which still boasts 500 hp (400 kW) and 524 lb-ft (710 Nm) from its pair of electric motors. (The Launch Edition uses a pair of equally powerful front and rear drive units, and the Limited uses a less-powerful front unit, giving away 100 hp (75 kW) in the process.)

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/01/this-one-could-use-less-power-the-jeep-wagoneer-s-ev/