Volvo Cars has just revealed a world-first multi-adaptive safety belt, designed to deliver smarter, more personalised protection in real-world crashes.
The new safety belt will make its official debut in the fully electric Volvo EX60 in 2026 and will use data from both inside and outside the car to adjust how it responds to different crash scenarios and individual body types.
Traditional seat belts apply the same force regardless of who’s wearing them or what type of crash occurs. Volvo’s new setup changes that, drawing on real-time information from the car’s advanced sensor suite. It tailors the belt’s behaviour to the specific occupant, factoring in their height, weight, body shape, and even seating position.
In a serious crash, a larger occupant might get a higher belt load to help protect the head. A smaller person in a lighter collision could benefit from a gentler setting to reduce the risk of rib injuries. The belt does this by expanding its load-limiting profiles from three to eleven, with even more potential combinations enabled by over-the-air software updates.
“The world first multi-adaptive safety belt is another milestone for automotive safety and a great example of how we leverage real-time data with the ambition to help save millions of more lives. This marks a major upgrade to the modern three-point safety belt, a Volvo invention introduced in 1959, estimated to have saved over a million lives.”
Åsa Haglund, head of Volvo Cars Safety Centre
The new safety belt comes as a result of Volvo’s extensive safety research, which includes data from over 80,000 real-world crash cases. Unlike conventional systems, the new belt can respond in milliseconds by analysing the crash’s direction, speed, and the occupant’s posture. It then selects the most suitable belt setting to optimise protection, and because the system updates wirelessly, it will keep learning and improving over time.
The belt forms another part of Volvo’s “full safety ecosystem” that also includes airbags, occupant sensors, and driver assistance systems. All of these work together to create a full network of features designed to reduce injury risks.
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