The comments here sound like they're from people who don't work in tech or at large companies...
The Volvo software design team isn't responsible for fixing electronics bugs, and maybe not even responsible for the presence or lack of physical buttons. They didn't even make the font - it was contracted to a design studio. I seriously doubt this effort distracted too much from fixing the other things people care about. Big companies do multiple things at once.
> The comments here sound like they're from people who don't work in tech or at large companies...
Or they're from people that read the headline/article.
It editorializes the motivation for this being "Safety" and thus, a lot of users are pointing out how hollow that rings or how misguided it seems when there's ways we'd much prefer they take to improve safety. For example, lack of physical buttons and the consolidation of everything into the touchscreen, which the article also acknowledges (and in turn, acknowledges that Volvo is aware people are growing more disgruntled with it).
This isn't a lack of understanding that big corporations are capable of having multiple people doing multiple things, this is us questioning if Volvo's reputation for actually caring about safety still holds true, or if their new owners with the final say in these matters (Geely) is just riding on that reputation by ignoring the much more pressing safety concerns yet knowingly cashing in on that reputation-capital by pandering to those same concerns with a font.
Does the font improve safety and is that the motivation, or not?
There are comments here like "They should instead focus on their overall software stability and usability", and spankalee is correctly pointing out that it's a false dichotomy.
> The work of London-based type design studio Dalton Maag, the new typeface is designed ‘to improve readability, sharpen attention, and promote a calmer, safety-focused driving experience.’
That's a quote from either Volvo or the designer. You're right -- it doesn't explicitly say that this was a quote from Volvo; but I'd be a bit surprised if a well-known designer was just making that up without it being part of the shared vision around the work.
And if that's true, the critics are correct. Volvo should be putting in physical buttons to make safer cars. Instead, they are claiming some bullshit "early adopter" status and putting in large amounts of control and information on an unsafe touchscreen to save money.
Casually window dressing this designer work as a "safe" typeface smacks of trying to cover up shoddy mistakes, and they need to be called out for that obfuscation specifically.
I have a Volvo with Android Automotive. And I think touchscreens in cars are trash, and Android particularly so; the latency is horrendous, the rear-view camera only works 50% of the time, everything just feels like the cheapest trash Android tablet from a decade ago.
I really wish this car just had physical controls and a double-din Carplay deck from Pioneer or whatever, the experience would be so much better.
I honestly believe I'm going to get into an accident in a parking lot due to the horrendous sight lines and unreliable camera.
Looks nice but nothing outstanding or particularly legible, compared to the many fonts developed for this purpose already. I think they wanted their own identity and there's nothing wrong with that. But the "designed for safety" part feels like a gimmick to tie into their branding.
Car manufacturers change their logo or font occasionally to send a message, solidify a brand identity, of course it won't be in any way related to any of the engineering of the car.
> Android Automotive. And I think touchscreens in cars are trash, and Android particularly so; the latency is horrendous
I don't own a Volvo but I've seen the infotainment system in action on their premium cars (XC60/XC90/EX90). If I were to be in the market for a new car in that category, the infotainment and "Volvo's close relationship with Google", to quote the article, would single handedly cross Volvo out from my list.
This is not how it works though: a product team shouldn't spend time working on this kind of details while big parts of the product are not good enough.
It's nice, but far from being the most legible font. I notice that the uppercase I is not shown in the example image - and that is one of the hardest letters to get right for a legible font.
Nitpicky, the 0 and O are difficult to distinguish. But for the application, this is not a problem. Other than entering (e.g. wifi) passwords, there are no places where one would be mistaken for the other in a passenger vehicle UI.
That makes only the lowercase L unambiguous, not the uppercase I )). But at that point, for a font intended for text with context, it is surely nitpicking on my part.
My ideal font is a san serif, in which the uppercase I had a small hint of serifs. I live in a fantasy world though, along with my Debian desktop and electric car.
A good car design shouldn’t require any writing or screens at all. It’s not safe to have drivers read while driving, or to assume the drivers language. The vintage 80s and older Volvos I have owned, where just looking them over is a masterclass in highly usable minimalist design, had almost zero writing anywhere, and all the controls were high quality mechanical switches with clear drawings that made them universally understandable to speakers of any language, and usable without taking your eyes off the road.
If Volvo wants to restore their image they should bring back a modern reinterpretation of the iconic 240, with the same level of usability, quality, and design language and absolutely no screens anywhere.
I was recently in a friend’s Tesla model 3 for the first time and all the buttons on the doors simply had a dash “-“ on them. No information about what they were for at all. Same dash for opening the windows and the opening the door. But no indication of which was which.
If the Volvo 240 is an example of elegant functional and minimalist design, the Tesla Model 3 is something close to the exact opposite of that- almost every aspect is sloppily ill conceived and overly complicated, with essential functions that should be accessible in an instant without taking your eyes off the wheel hidden down menus on a touch screen. Saving a single dollar on a physical button at the expense of your safety.
For anyone who thinks legibility in typographic design is a minor issue, please read about highway sign design, Saab's "Night Panel", Germany's license plate font (which is a fruit of another legibility problem), Atkinson HyperLegible fonts, and aircraft dial design studies done in the past.
This is important work and is being outsourced (so no heavy load on Volvo employees besides reviewing the work), and I believe this is as important as reducing any distractions during driving.
Ford used to have (and may still have) a cockpit/dashboard simulator where they install prototype dashboards and test their mental load by creating "unexpected hazards" in the simulation while tweaking something on the dash.
I can operate my car's controls without even looking at them and just by feeling them, while looking at the road. The dials are extremely readable, so I'm not aware that I'm checking them even. We should be targeting this over design, any day.
i ask because i had a SAAB 900 model from the early 80s, used, and it was like that. never needed to look away from the road...and it's been gone for 35 years now but oh how i miss its design.
It's not something very young. An 2001 Ford Focus MK-I. However, I recently drove a Ford Puma Hybrid, and that had the same DNA. Great dashboard despite being LCD, good controls, on-wheel cruise and limiter, etc. I can do most of the things without looking away from the road.
While I use Apple CarPlay most of the time, it's navigation was good, even. With good directions and readable, clear maps.
For all the cars I have rented in the last 2-3 years, Ford still has that DNA the best.
The font is proportioned very cleanly. Every lower case letter has the same height, and if they need to be higher like an "h", the remaining part of the font except the long stem is again the same height. This creates two well defined lines where the text is present. With the wide stance of the font, plus all the lowercase and uppercase characters occupy almost the same area, text fits into a loose grid.
It's a modern, almost mono, minimalist font which reduces the effort required to process it. With some tasteful design choices, it doesn't look bland, either. It's like a well-crafted machine draped in a beautiful paneling. It's as engineering as it gets, but in typography.
Chinese. Volvo is a fully Chinese company that has some people working for them in Sweden. That does not make Volvo a Swedish carmaker. Zeekr also isn't a Swedish carmaker, despite having an R&D center in Gothenburg.
A friend recently got a steering pump for his classic Volvo 940 and instead of a European part the official Volvo dealership gave him a Chinese part. Broke in a couple of months.
The times that a Volvo would do 500,000 kilometers with basis maintenance is in the past.
So do you think iPhones built in China have terrible build quality? How about the ones made in India? I have an India-built iPhone — can’t tell a difference.
Chinese parts don’t necessarily mean low quality. It may have meant that in the past, but not anymore. People need to get over that mentality.
There’s nothing inherently magical about anywhere (be it Europe, America, India, China, or anywhere else) that guarantees things made there are of impeccable or terrible quality. If it’s built well it’s built well.
The fact is that Volvo's reputation and prioritization of quality builds and stringent safety measures (I owe my life to a rental Volvo S90) are not shared by its Chinese parent company. When that philosophy trickles top-down, Volvo is affected.
In Apple's case, even as a iOS hater (yet a user), I would still say that Apple prioritizes product quality standards at a very high level. That culture trickles down as imposed requirements from Apple to its suppliers.
Volvo still design, develop, prototype and even mass produce cars in Sweden just like they always did. They haven't had Swedish majority ownership this century but still do their thing.
That could change of course, but so far so good for the Swedish economy and fans of Scandi design.
Since Chinese tech is clearly state of the art for EV's I think Volvo could be in a good spot if they get to continue as they have so far. Win-win.
As for realiability, 500 000 km is no problem for a decent EV and Geely makes good ones. I wouldn't worry about that aspect either way.
> Volvo is a fully Chinese company that has some people working for them in Sweden
Volvo (Cars) doesn't just "have some people working for them" in Sweden. Volvo Personvagnar Aktiebolag was founded in, and is incorporated in, Sweden. Their HQ is in Sweden.
Zeekr was started by a Chinese company in China and has their HQ in China.
Apple products are all “Designed in Cupertino, California,” and manufactured in China, but it isn’t Chinese. I think what makes Volvo a Chinese company is that they are literally owned by the Chinese, though I think it’s smart for them to continue to design in Sweden to retain their historical positioning and sensibilities.
The majority of the employees, in particular top management, is Swedish.
2/9 on the board are Chinese (same as Swedes). The rest are westerners.
Volvo produces more cars in Sweden than Apple produces iPhones etc in the US.
But you are correct that ownership of the company is majority Chinese (Li Shufu/Geely specifically) and they can control a lot.
Apple's ownership is more muddy, since the largest owners are big institutional (US) owners - mostly representing owners from who knows where through big funds (including index funds). I think it's fair to say that Apple is owned very globally. In that sense it's not US controlled, but globally controlled.
I think Volvo is still very Swedish, including its products, but also heavily Chinese influenced (and trending up) due to market challenges.
There's probably still some value in associating a large multi national company to a specific country and attributing it certain things due to that, but with these big companies it's becoming less so and definitely more complex. But saying that Volvo is fully Chinese and not Swedish anymore? That seems like fooling oneself.
It's more chinese now than it ever was American, but it's certainly not an absolute thing. Thanks to the global supply chain, it's a big complicated spectrum compounded by a bunch of "it depends". If you don't want to dwell in that pedantry, don't blame you (though I am easily nerd-sniped by discussions of logistics), but without that, that essentially leaves us with "Who owns it" and "Where is it Headquartered." There's also "what are the demographics of their employees" to see if there's a strong representation of a single country ID, but that information isn't always readily available.
IKEA is still Swedish despite being incorporated in The Netherlands and having all their "charities" in The Netherlands. For companies of that size, being incorporated somewhere is just an administrative trick to lower taxes. The same way I structured my mortgage to maximise tax returns.
Volvo Cars has been bought by Geely. That is not comparable.
Huh? Volvo is a subsidiary. Almost every legacy car company is a subsidiary of some kind. Lamborghinis aren’t German because they’re owned by Volkswagen group and often have Audi parts and Jeep isn’t Dutch because they’re owned by Stellantis.
Well I have recently noticed many news organizations don’t refer to the Detroit automakers as ‘the big3’ anymore. They make it a point to say ford and gm and quietly leave Stellantis out of the mix.
Although Stellantis has strong presence in US as formerly Chrysler and Fiat Chrysler, the reality is they are not American auto company anymore. I’d guess they’re counted as European.
Would you consider Ram as still being American? I have to assume a lot of their manufacturing is still done in the US due to a limited international market for their trucks.
2010 was the year Volvo ownership went to Geely, so your xc60 was designed and built under Ford ownership. The xc60 is a big, expensive SUV (at least for us EU residents) so presumably there should be a quality engine in there.
Some smaller models at the time had a PSA (Ford/Peugeot) engine which don't come anywhere near 300k before blowing up (or simply becoming very expensive to maintain).
The latest electric EX30 model reuses the Chinese built Zeekr X design. Seems like they drive ok, but if they can get 300k remains to be seen. Haven't seen any used with more than around 50k on them.
I drove the EX30 for a few days as a loaner. Build quality is nothing in comparison to what e.g. the XC40 provides. I get it, it's cheaper, but it does not feel like it's a Volvo any more.
That picture of the dashboard displaying "Hello, Liam" is what makes me super happy that I bought a 2022 Honda CR-V with a minimal computerized dashboard. I do not want my car knowing who I am.
Volvo tries to assign profiles (and Google logins) to each key so the idea is that the car is set up for you when you enter. They don't fully have it right (profiles only swap when the car is unlocked), so it's kind of pointless at the moment.
My Polestar has this, and while I haven't tested it thoroughly, because my spouse rarely drives the car, it does swap profiles just by getting in the car with the fob that is linked to your profile.
At least in the current state, you do not have to carry an extra fob. Most of the time, I hand "my" fob to my spouse, and once she's in the car, she presses the appropriate memory recall button. All optional, of course. You can adjust seat position and change radio stations yourself manually.
Just because it doesn’t have a HUD on your dashboard doesn’t mean your vehicle isn’t tied to your personal identity in myriad ways. Almost all cars ship with sophisticated telematics systems nowadays.
I'm just sick of interfaces pretending to be human. Be an unabashed interface, just show me the gauges or weather or anything functional on boot-up. (Unless you're KITT- KITT can talk to me.)
That message is really just confirmation of which driver profile is active. It could say “selected profile: Liam”, but “hello” is just as good, I think.
I think you are missing the point. The font curves/shapes/beziers are not copyrightable. But the source code and resulting font file is (everywhere). Fonts are licensed just like software (or more like software plugins).
So you can take any typeface and trace/redraw it just fine. But you can't use the original font files unless you have proper license.
That's exactly what I was wondering, since I vaguely remember that all this "copyrighted fonts" silly business boils down to the exact source code, and the same shape can be represented a hundred ways. So, what's the big deal, anyway? I never tried to do it, but I'd assume that to make a "different" copy of a font with minimal human intervention must be a trivial computing task by now. Sure, in theory there are subtleties like many possible ligatures and kerning, but I doubt it's really that critical. And it only matters if you only have a picture with so many latter combinations. If you have the actual font file, you have full information anyway.
And if so, why people still even bother with all that "font licenses" stuff and such? I'd think the only reason to buy a font by now must be when design studio actually does custom work for you. And the emphasis is on "custom", because it isn't truly "for you": anyone will be effectively free to use it after you use it once anywhere.
Fonts might seem trivial but actually there is a lot of engineering going on underneath. There is whole programming language underneath that allows fonts to do what they do, spacing between characters, how they should be rasterized on screens and also making them widely compatible.
So in same way as one would expect “its just a CRUD app” it should be trivial computing task to make a “different” copy. No unless you do some decompilation of the font which is breaking the license.
About why people bother… maybe the biggest issue typography (and lot of design in general) have is that if done right it's mostly invisible or natural. You notice typography only when it's done badly - it's very subconscious. That doesn't mean it's not ongoing topic with experts dedicating their lives to it. And for them even differences between variations of Helvetica matter. If you look around yourself you will have typography absolutely everywhere - you have probably 1000s of different fonts just in your home. You probably don't notice them but you would if our society standards were lower.
They should instead focus on their overall software stability and usability. And introduce more physical buttons for climate control. I don't want to click 4 times on a screen while driving in order to enable seat heating.
Oh lovely, now my kids can fuck with my seat, assuming the computer can hear one of them over the other one talking about something else. This is a regression in usability compared to luxury cars from 30 years ago.
Concur. In fact I feel like it's painfully off-brand for Volvo to go all-in on touchscreens. They were so proud about inventing the 3-point safety belt that they embedded it into their logo for decades. Volvo has always been about safety and to-the-point functionality. If any brand could get an enthusiastic following (and a productive marketing campaign) for de-emphasizing screens and emphasizing buttons, it's them.
I expected to hate a touch-screen for the main UI, but in my Volvo ex30 there is just so much less to monitor and _do_ while driving that it’s a really relaxing and enjoyable driving experience. Because I’m just paying attention to where the car is going, it feels a lot safer to me vs my previous manual-transmission ICE car.
There’s a big speedometer top right (it’s right-hand drive), an indicator of the driving mode (manual, cruise-control, pilot assist), and the rest is basically map/navigation. No gears, no RPM, no oil temp, no cryptic warning lights.
Steering wheel controls for music, calls, speed control, etc are fine, but the voice control over music, navigation and climate are so good I barely use them: “hey google, make it a bit cooler in here” or “hey google, let’s go to xxx” both work basically flawlessly.
I'm the owner of a 2020 Volvo V60 that has been at Waterloo Volvo since March of this year, racking up an increasingly terrifying bill of various parts and wiring harnesses all ordered one after the other from Sweden.
Despite my frustrations with their shop, they have been very good about keeping me in a revolving door of 2025 and 2026 loaner cars, especially the XC40 and XC60. Despite the occasional glitched audio or freezing bugs, I think they really have done a good job with the Android Automotive integration. It's nice having it logged in and able to see my Google Maps search history, but without having to actually have my phone on me or plugged in for CarPlay. For example, if another family member borrows the car and all that stuff just works for them too without them having to separately configure their phone.
I would be nervous about how well it all will be supported over the long term, especially once these cars are >4yrs old and off lease. But at that point you can always fall back to projection.
This is the state of Volvo innovation in 2025, a legible font. Geely has not been good for Volvo.
For a giant tablet with no buttons that never belonged on a dashboard. It is common knowledge that buttons are better for drivers. For a company supposedly focused on safety, they make their cars more dangerous for drivers by installing touchscreens and removing buttons.
As an owner of a Volco Electric, I am happy that they are focusing on fonts and adding nicknames to cars instead of fixing the countless bugs and issues these cars have regarding software.
/s
Issues I encountered:
- The schedule for AC charging moves by 1 hour when DST changes. So someone thought let's ignore daylight saving times for that.
- The app randomly says "could not start heating/cooling", but still started it.
- The last few times, AC schedule and power limit were ignored by the car (so charged 16 A but the car said only 14 A allowed)
- Randomly, the AC schedule is in a random timezone (like 7-9h lff), but just for one day.
- Sound sometimes does not work, like at all. Reboot the center display helps, but takes a couple of minutes.
Most days, it feels like they don't drive their own cars.
Agreed. The software situation seems to be getting more confusing by the month. AAOS builds have suddenly jumped from 3.x to 4.x and the release notes say "various fixes". Um, like what? Was there a major update to something or not?
I'm still on a AAOS 2.x release from 2023 and will not upgrade at this point.
Why does a car company need to develop its own typeface?
Is it more cost-effective? Is it to have better control?
Is it for branding? (Although it does not appear unique/novel)
It’s not like it needs to solve something that isn’t addressed by other typefaces —at least I don’t see it. It’s not a radical departure from existing typefaces.
Part of making a typeface is making it subconsciously part of the brand. Though there's precedent for making a functional font in this use case as Airbus designed B612 for readability within their glass cockpits.
You get to decide which car you buy every X years. When the time comes, you pick one of the brands from the group you consider notable. Established brands do a lot of things to stay within that group. This one worked - we talk about it.
Half the value proposition of car culture is to symbol that you're better off than your neighbor etc. Of course branding is important, otherwise you would just buy the competitor's that also give you a couch with 4 wheels.
Well thanks for that rabbit hole. I was hoping the dingus was the actual term, but sadly not.
For anyone needing some pub quiz trivia, a lower case g has the top half which is called the bowl, the bit top right is called the ear, then the bottom is called a loop tail when it's closed, or just a tail when it's open, and is joined by a link.
This is not a legible font. You can clearly see they did not distinguish uppercase o and 0 (zero) at all. Uppercase i and lowercase L are barely distinguishable. Classic font blunders.
That makes sense for code or technical text, but it is less relevant for car UIs. In an infotainment system you almost never see ambiguous strings where O vs 0 or I vs l matters. Everything is highly contextual, short, and glance-based. These fonts are tuned for distance, motion, glare, and quick recognition, not for reading arbitrary identifiers. If it tested poorly in real driving conditions that would be a real problem, but judging it by programmer font rules feels like the wrong yardstick.
The comments here sound like they're from people who don't work in tech or at large companies...
The Volvo software design team isn't responsible for fixing electronics bugs, and maybe not even responsible for the presence or lack of physical buttons. They didn't even make the font - it was contracted to a design studio. I seriously doubt this effort distracted too much from fixing the other things people care about. Big companies do multiple things at once.
> The comments here sound like they're from people who don't work in tech or at large companies...
Or they're from people that read the headline/article.
It editorializes the motivation for this being "Safety" and thus, a lot of users are pointing out how hollow that rings or how misguided it seems when there's ways we'd much prefer they take to improve safety. For example, lack of physical buttons and the consolidation of everything into the touchscreen, which the article also acknowledges (and in turn, acknowledges that Volvo is aware people are growing more disgruntled with it).
This isn't a lack of understanding that big corporations are capable of having multiple people doing multiple things, this is us questioning if Volvo's reputation for actually caring about safety still holds true, or if their new owners with the final say in these matters (Geely) is just riding on that reputation by ignoring the much more pressing safety concerns yet knowingly cashing in on that reputation-capital by pandering to those same concerns with a font.
The headline wasn't written by Volvo.
Does the font improve safety and is that the motivation, or not?
There are comments here like "They should instead focus on their overall software stability and usability", and spankalee is correctly pointing out that it's a false dichotomy.
> The work of London-based type design studio Dalton Maag, the new typeface is designed ‘to improve readability, sharpen attention, and promote a calmer, safety-focused driving experience.’
That's a quote from either Volvo or the designer. You're right -- it doesn't explicitly say that this was a quote from Volvo; but I'd be a bit surprised if a well-known designer was just making that up without it being part of the shared vision around the work.
And if that's true, the critics are correct. Volvo should be putting in physical buttons to make safer cars. Instead, they are claiming some bullshit "early adopter" status and putting in large amounts of control and information on an unsafe touchscreen to save money.
Casually window dressing this designer work as a "safe" typeface smacks of trying to cover up shoddy mistakes, and they need to be called out for that obfuscation specifically.
I think the font looks lovely. Great touches.
I have a Volvo with Android Automotive. And I think touchscreens in cars are trash, and Android particularly so; the latency is horrendous, the rear-view camera only works 50% of the time, everything just feels like the cheapest trash Android tablet from a decade ago.
I really wish this car just had physical controls and a double-din Carplay deck from Pioneer or whatever, the experience would be so much better.
I honestly believe I'm going to get into an accident in a parking lot due to the horrendous sight lines and unreliable camera.
> I think the font looks lovely. Great touches.
Looks nice but nothing outstanding or particularly legible, compared to the many fonts developed for this purpose already. I think they wanted their own identity and there's nothing wrong with that. But the "designed for safety" part feels like a gimmick to tie into their branding.
Car manufacturers change their logo or font occasionally to send a message, solidify a brand identity, of course it won't be in any way related to any of the engineering of the car.
> Android Automotive. And I think touchscreens in cars are trash, and Android particularly so; the latency is horrendous
I don't own a Volvo but I've seen the infotainment system in action on their premium cars (XC60/XC90/EX90). If I were to be in the market for a new car in that category, the infotainment and "Volvo's close relationship with Google", to quote the article, would single handedly cross Volvo out from my list.
This in no way responds to anything I wrote ... perhaps you meant to post it at the top level.
There's evidence less aesthetic Humanist fonts are more legible and safer than the new Grotesque-derived example here.
https://news.mit.edu/2012/agelab-automobile-dashboard-fonts-...
This is not how it works though: a product team shouldn't spend time working on this kind of details while big parts of the product are not good enough.
It is designed by a studio. If they created the perfect car but used Times New Roman, then people would have said that it's ugly as hell.
It's nice, but far from being the most legible font. I notice that the uppercase I is not shown in the example image - and that is one of the hardest letters to get right for a legible font.
Nitpicky, the 0 and O are difficult to distinguish. But for the application, this is not a problem. Other than entering (e.g. wifi) passwords, there are no places where one would be mistaken for the other in a passenger vehicle UI.
You can see it at https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/dqRnTESj6k2pgWFWPnzCTQ-768...
Yes, it's small, but "l" has a tail, and "i" is very prominent for what it is so while "I" is a column, it's an unmistakable one.
I want to see the infamous Turkish Quartet "ıiIİ" in action.
That makes only the lowercase L unambiguous, not the uppercase I )). But at that point, for a font intended for text with context, it is surely nitpicking on my part.
My ideal font is a san serif, in which the uppercase I had a small hint of serifs. I live in a fantasy world though, along with my Debian desktop and electric car.
> obsessive pursue of safety
> forces use of touchscreen / touch controls for climate control
https://www.mycarusermanual.com/volvo/xc60/suv/2020/climate-...
Hmmmmm. Someone lies and I think it's volvo.
I'm pressing X For "doubt".
- https://safety21.cmu.edu/2025/03/11/physical-buttons-could-m... - https://www.evo.co.uk/car-technology/207666/buttons-could-re... - https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/study-finds-that... - https://www.evo.co.uk/car-technology/206867/just-how-bad-are...
A good car design shouldn’t require any writing or screens at all. It’s not safe to have drivers read while driving, or to assume the drivers language. The vintage 80s and older Volvos I have owned, where just looking them over is a masterclass in highly usable minimalist design, had almost zero writing anywhere, and all the controls were high quality mechanical switches with clear drawings that made them universally understandable to speakers of any language, and usable without taking your eyes off the road.
If Volvo wants to restore their image they should bring back a modern reinterpretation of the iconic 240, with the same level of usability, quality, and design language and absolutely no screens anywhere.
I was recently in a friend’s Tesla model 3 for the first time and all the buttons on the doors simply had a dash “-“ on them. No information about what they were for at all. Same dash for opening the windows and the opening the door. But no indication of which was which.
If the Volvo 240 is an example of elegant functional and minimalist design, the Tesla Model 3 is something close to the exact opposite of that- almost every aspect is sloppily ill conceived and overly complicated, with essential functions that should be accessible in an instant without taking your eyes off the wheel hidden down menus on a touch screen. Saving a single dollar on a physical button at the expense of your safety.
For anyone who thinks legibility in typographic design is a minor issue, please read about highway sign design, Saab's "Night Panel", Germany's license plate font (which is a fruit of another legibility problem), Atkinson HyperLegible fonts, and aircraft dial design studies done in the past.
This is important work and is being outsourced (so no heavy load on Volvo employees besides reviewing the work), and I believe this is as important as reducing any distractions during driving.
Ford used to have (and may still have) a cockpit/dashboard simulator where they install prototype dashboards and test their mental load by creating "unexpected hazards" in the simulation while tweaking something on the dash.
I can operate my car's controls without even looking at them and just by feeling them, while looking at the road. The dials are extremely readable, so I'm not aware that I'm checking them even. We should be targeting this over design, any day.
This is important work.
what car can you operate so?
i ask because i had a SAAB 900 model from the early 80s, used, and it was like that. never needed to look away from the road...and it's been gone for 35 years now but oh how i miss its design.
It's not something very young. An 2001 Ford Focus MK-I. However, I recently drove a Ford Puma Hybrid, and that had the same DNA. Great dashboard despite being LCD, good controls, on-wheel cruise and limiter, etc. I can do most of the things without looking away from the road.
While I use Apple CarPlay most of the time, it's navigation was good, even. With good directions and readable, clear maps.
For all the cars I have rented in the last 2-3 years, Ford still has that DNA the best.
That's actually quite a beautiful font. Hard for me to say why, but I feel the "Charging" text feels really balanced and pretty.
The "Parked" text as well - it looks near perfect. I actually looked at it and tried to decide how it could look so good.
The font is proportioned very cleanly. Every lower case letter has the same height, and if they need to be higher like an "h", the remaining part of the font except the long stem is again the same height. This creates two well defined lines where the text is present. With the wide stance of the font, plus all the lowercase and uppercase characters occupy almost the same area, text fits into a loose grid.
It's a modern, almost mono, minimalist font which reduces the effort required to process it. With some tasteful design choices, it doesn't look bland, either. It's like a well-crafted machine draped in a beautiful paneling. It's as engineering as it gets, but in typography.
Font is nowhere near as nice as Elston/Volvo Broad; but I suppose it's better for touchscreens. My advice for Volvo:
1.) Go back to actual buttons/dials (with the old font, please)
2.) Fix the comically bad horrifying electronics issues the new models have.
> for the Swedish carmaker
Chinese. Volvo is a fully Chinese company that has some people working for them in Sweden. That does not make Volvo a Swedish carmaker. Zeekr also isn't a Swedish carmaker, despite having an R&D center in Gothenburg.
A friend recently got a steering pump for his classic Volvo 940 and instead of a European part the official Volvo dealership gave him a Chinese part. Broke in a couple of months.
The times that a Volvo would do 500,000 kilometers with basis maintenance is in the past.
That’s anecdotal.
So do you think iPhones built in China have terrible build quality? How about the ones made in India? I have an India-built iPhone — can’t tell a difference.
Chinese parts don’t necessarily mean low quality. It may have meant that in the past, but not anymore. People need to get over that mentality.
There’s nothing inherently magical about anywhere (be it Europe, America, India, China, or anywhere else) that guarantees things made there are of impeccable or terrible quality. If it’s built well it’s built well.
The fact is that Volvo's reputation and prioritization of quality builds and stringent safety measures (I owe my life to a rental Volvo S90) are not shared by its Chinese parent company. When that philosophy trickles top-down, Volvo is affected.
In Apple's case, even as a iOS hater (yet a user), I would still say that Apple prioritizes product quality standards at a very high level. That culture trickles down as imposed requirements from Apple to its suppliers.
Volvo still design, develop, prototype and even mass produce cars in Sweden just like they always did. They haven't had Swedish majority ownership this century but still do their thing.
That could change of course, but so far so good for the Swedish economy and fans of Scandi design.
Since Chinese tech is clearly state of the art for EV's I think Volvo could be in a good spot if they get to continue as they have so far. Win-win.
As for realiability, 500 000 km is no problem for a decent EV and Geely makes good ones. I wouldn't worry about that aspect either way.
> Volvo is a fully Chinese company that has some people working for them in Sweden
Volvo (Cars) doesn't just "have some people working for them" in Sweden. Volvo Personvagnar Aktiebolag was founded in, and is incorporated in, Sweden. Their HQ is in Sweden.
Zeekr was started by a Chinese company in China and has their HQ in China.
I consider it "Swedish-Chinese"
Volvo has more people working for it in China than in Sweden.
Volvo builds more cars in China than it does in Sweden.
Volvo is owned by the Chinese.
Arguably more of the design for Volvo cars is done in China. It depends on whether you consider the visible design more important or the powertrain.
Volvo is part Swedish, but it's much more "Chinese-Swedish" than "Swedish-Chinese".
All the main design, both aesthetically and mechanical, is done in Sweden. This is what makes it Swedish
Apple products are all “Designed in Cupertino, California,” and manufactured in China, but it isn’t Chinese. I think what makes Volvo a Chinese company is that they are literally owned by the Chinese, though I think it’s smart for them to continue to design in Sweden to retain their historical positioning and sensibilities.
You wouldn't say Thinkpad is a US laptop anymore.
Milwaukee tools? Chinese.
You wouldn't say that many of the skyscrapers in China designed by international artists and architects weren't Chinese.
It doesn't matter who is designing the Chinese cars. They're Chinese owned and operated. That's where the buck stops.
What's to stop the Swedish portion from being downsized in the future? That call would be made in China.
The majority of the employees, in particular top management, is Swedish.
2/9 on the board are Chinese (same as Swedes). The rest are westerners.
Volvo produces more cars in Sweden than Apple produces iPhones etc in the US.
But you are correct that ownership of the company is majority Chinese (Li Shufu/Geely specifically) and they can control a lot.
Apple's ownership is more muddy, since the largest owners are big institutional (US) owners - mostly representing owners from who knows where through big funds (including index funds). I think it's fair to say that Apple is owned very globally. In that sense it's not US controlled, but globally controlled.
I think Volvo is still very Swedish, including its products, but also heavily Chinese influenced (and trending up) due to market challenges.
There's probably still some value in associating a large multi national company to a specific country and attributing it certain things due to that, but with these big companies it's becoming less so and definitely more complex. But saying that Volvo is fully Chinese and not Swedish anymore? That seems like fooling oneself.
It's technically not wrong to describe Volvo as Swedish. It was founded in Sweden, the main office remains in Sweden, but it is fully owned by China.
Swedish or not is a matter of perspective at this point.
Similarly for mojang, king and dice. All founded in Sweden, main offices in Stockholm, and owned by American companies(ms, ms, and ea, respectively)
Arguably powerhouses of Swedish gaming, arguably American affiliates in Sweden.
Formerly Swedish.
I thought Volvo was publicly traded. Had to look it up.
Volvo Group - sells trucks - publicly traded - Swedish
Volvo Cars - sells cars - not publicly traded - 100% owned by Geely (Chinese)
Volvo Cars ≠ Volvo Group
Volvo Cars is still publicly traded. Ticker symbol is VOLCAR B on the Swedish NASDAQ: https://au.finance.yahoo.com/quote/VOLCAR-B.ST/
Geely owns around 79% of the shares, with the rest split up between pension funds and private equity.
Was Volvo an American car company when it was owned by Ford?
It's more chinese now than it ever was American, but it's certainly not an absolute thing. Thanks to the global supply chain, it's a big complicated spectrum compounded by a bunch of "it depends". If you don't want to dwell in that pedantry, don't blame you (though I am easily nerd-sniped by discussions of logistics), but without that, that essentially leaves us with "Who owns it" and "Where is it Headquartered." There's also "what are the demographics of their employees" to see if there's a strong representation of a single country ID, but that information isn't always readily available.
So all American IT companies are really Irish or something, since they're incorporated there?
IKEA is still Swedish despite being incorporated in The Netherlands and having all their "charities" in The Netherlands. For companies of that size, being incorporated somewhere is just an administrative trick to lower taxes. The same way I structured my mortgage to maximise tax returns.
Volvo Cars has been bought by Geely. That is not comparable.
Are they owned by the Irish?
No the parent companies are always incorporated in the US, usually in Deleware.
They funnel all of their foreign profits through various tax shelter subsidiaries in Ireland and similar locations.
Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Netflix are all incorporated in Deleware, Apple is incorporated in California.
Huh? Volvo is a subsidiary. Almost every legacy car company is a subsidiary of some kind. Lamborghinis aren’t German because they’re owned by Volkswagen group and often have Audi parts and Jeep isn’t Dutch because they’re owned by Stellantis.
Well I have recently noticed many news organizations don’t refer to the Detroit automakers as ‘the big3’ anymore. They make it a point to say ford and gm and quietly leave Stellantis out of the mix. Although Stellantis has strong presence in US as formerly Chrysler and Fiat Chrysler, the reality is they are not American auto company anymore. I’d guess they’re counted as European.
Would you consider Ram as still being American? I have to assume a lot of their manufacturing is still done in the US due to a limited international market for their trucks.
My anecdata on a 2019 Volvo xc40 is that it’s my most reliable car ever? Made in china too
2010 xc60 (turbo online 6) here a few thousand miles away from 300k...
It's got a few issues, but the thing has been a beast. Not sure how Chinese it is however.
2010 was the year Volvo ownership went to Geely, so your xc60 was designed and built under Ford ownership. The xc60 is a big, expensive SUV (at least for us EU residents) so presumably there should be a quality engine in there.
Some smaller models at the time had a PSA (Ford/Peugeot) engine which don't come anywhere near 300k before blowing up (or simply becoming very expensive to maintain).
The latest electric EX30 model reuses the Chinese built Zeekr X design. Seems like they drive ok, but if they can get 300k remains to be seen. Haven't seen any used with more than around 50k on them.
I drove the EX30 for a few days as a loaner. Build quality is nothing in comparison to what e.g. the XC40 provides. I get it, it's cheaper, but it does not feel like it's a Volvo any more.
What an utter waste of money, did manager's nephew design studio needed some work ?
That picture of the dashboard displaying "Hello, Liam" is what makes me super happy that I bought a 2022 Honda CR-V with a minimal computerized dashboard. I do not want my car knowing who I am.
Let's Windowsify it.
"Welcome to your Volvo, let's get started"
"Please wait while we prepare your car!"
"Something went wrong."
https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/threads/if-microsoft-built...
If microsoft built cars (joke) (2004)
Possibly better reference:
https://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/humor/WindowsVsCars.html Comparing Microsoft Windows With Cars
"If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon"
Volvo tries to assign profiles (and Google logins) to each key so the idea is that the car is set up for you when you enter. They don't fully have it right (profiles only swap when the car is unlocked), so it's kind of pointless at the moment.
My Polestar has this, and while I haven't tested it thoroughly, because my spouse rarely drives the car, it does swap profiles just by getting in the car with the fob that is linked to your profile.
Out of curiosity. It is possible to use a modern Volvo without a Google account?
Yes. Android Auto and CarPlay still work and you get basic Google Maps functionality without signing in. You can't download additional apps though.
There is no way to sideload apks?
Great, not only do we have to carry an extra fob, we have to each carry one that individually tracks us.
At least in the current state, you do not have to carry an extra fob. Most of the time, I hand "my" fob to my spouse, and once she's in the car, she presses the appropriate memory recall button. All optional, of course. You can adjust seat position and change radio stations yourself manually.
Just because it doesn’t have a HUD on your dashboard doesn’t mean your vehicle isn’t tied to your personal identity in myriad ways. Almost all cars ship with sophisticated telematics systems nowadays.
I wonder how the UI will adopt with a longer name.
I'm just sick of interfaces pretending to be human. Be an unabashed interface, just show me the gauges or weather or anything functional on boot-up. (Unless you're KITT- KITT can talk to me.)
That message is really just confirmation of which driver profile is active. It could say “selected profile: Liam”, but “hello” is just as good, I think.
It's the difference between the Star Trek computer and HAL-9000
I wonder if its open license. Not as impactful as seat belts, but it would be nice to see volvo continue that legacy.
> Not as impactful as seat belts, but it would be nice to see volvo continue that legacy
I'm afraid that legacy is long lost, Volvo is a very different company today than it used to be.
Volvo no longer exists. It's a brand name owned by a conglomerate, the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group.
I mean, it does exist, it goes by "Volvo Car AB", and it's a real company owned by Geely Holding (full name "Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd.").
But it does exist, just isn't the same as it used to be, back in the "seat-belts is for everyone" era.
Unless they're covered by a design patent, it's a free for all anyway in many places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...
I think you are missing the point. The font curves/shapes/beziers are not copyrightable. But the source code and resulting font file is (everywhere). Fonts are licensed just like software (or more like software plugins).
So you can take any typeface and trace/redraw it just fine. But you can't use the original font files unless you have proper license.
That's exactly what I was wondering, since I vaguely remember that all this "copyrighted fonts" silly business boils down to the exact source code, and the same shape can be represented a hundred ways. So, what's the big deal, anyway? I never tried to do it, but I'd assume that to make a "different" copy of a font with minimal human intervention must be a trivial computing task by now. Sure, in theory there are subtleties like many possible ligatures and kerning, but I doubt it's really that critical. And it only matters if you only have a picture with so many latter combinations. If you have the actual font file, you have full information anyway.
And if so, why people still even bother with all that "font licenses" stuff and such? I'd think the only reason to buy a font by now must be when design studio actually does custom work for you. And the emphasis is on "custom", because it isn't truly "for you": anyone will be effectively free to use it after you use it once anywhere.
Fonts might seem trivial but actually there is a lot of engineering going on underneath. There is whole programming language underneath that allows fonts to do what they do, spacing between characters, how they should be rasterized on screens and also making them widely compatible.
So in same way as one would expect “its just a CRUD app” it should be trivial computing task to make a “different” copy. No unless you do some decompilation of the font which is breaking the license.
About why people bother… maybe the biggest issue typography (and lot of design in general) have is that if done right it's mostly invisible or natural. You notice typography only when it's done badly - it's very subconscious. That doesn't mean it's not ongoing topic with experts dedicating their lives to it. And for them even differences between variations of Helvetica matter. If you look around yourself you will have typography absolutely everywhere - you have probably 1000s of different fonts just in your home. You probably don't notice them but you would if our society standards were lower.
They should instead focus on their overall software stability and usability. And introduce more physical buttons for climate control. I don't want to click 4 times on a screen while driving in order to enable seat heating.
Seat heat is one click in my 2022 Volvo. Or as others have noted, you can use your voice.
New Volvos let you “hey Google, turn on my seat heating”. I wish it wasn’t google, but the voice interface is great while driving.
Oh lovely, now my kids can fuck with my seat, assuming the computer can hear one of them over the other one talking about something else. This is a regression in usability compared to luxury cars from 30 years ago.
I guess they don't have hands to press the seat heat button either?
They would need some pretty long hands to reach the dashboard if they're in the back seat.
Something that would make driving safer is removing that massive tablet.
Give me buttons, not a font.
Concur. In fact I feel like it's painfully off-brand for Volvo to go all-in on touchscreens. They were so proud about inventing the 3-point safety belt that they embedded it into their logo for decades. Volvo has always been about safety and to-the-point functionality. If any brand could get an enthusiastic following (and a productive marketing campaign) for de-emphasizing screens and emphasizing buttons, it's them.
I expected to hate a touch-screen for the main UI, but in my Volvo ex30 there is just so much less to monitor and _do_ while driving that it’s a really relaxing and enjoyable driving experience. Because I’m just paying attention to where the car is going, it feels a lot safer to me vs my previous manual-transmission ICE car.
There’s a big speedometer top right (it’s right-hand drive), an indicator of the driving mode (manual, cruise-control, pilot assist), and the rest is basically map/navigation. No gears, no RPM, no oil temp, no cryptic warning lights.
Steering wheel controls for music, calls, speed control, etc are fine, but the voice control over music, navigation and climate are so good I barely use them: “hey google, make it a bit cooler in here” or “hey google, let’s go to xxx” both work basically flawlessly.
Volvo got sold.
Sure but the brand still has value.
I'm the owner of a 2020 Volvo V60 that has been at Waterloo Volvo since March of this year, racking up an increasingly terrifying bill of various parts and wiring harnesses all ordered one after the other from Sweden.
Despite my frustrations with their shop, they have been very good about keeping me in a revolving door of 2025 and 2026 loaner cars, especially the XC40 and XC60. Despite the occasional glitched audio or freezing bugs, I think they really have done a good job with the Android Automotive integration. It's nice having it logged in and able to see my Google Maps search history, but without having to actually have my phone on me or plugged in for CarPlay. For example, if another family member borrows the car and all that stuff just works for them too without them having to separately configure their phone.
I would be nervous about how well it all will be supported over the long term, especially once these cars are >4yrs old and off lease. But at that point you can always fall back to projection.
This is the state of Volvo innovation in 2025, a legible font. Geely has not been good for Volvo.
For a giant tablet with no buttons that never belonged on a dashboard. It is common knowledge that buttons are better for drivers. For a company supposedly focused on safety, they make their cars more dangerous for drivers by installing touchscreens and removing buttons.
You know companies can work on multiple things at time? Especially when its done by contractor like here?
As cars go to shit, I'm more and more glad I live in NYC and mainly use public transportation
At least you don’t have to sit in shit when you’re in a car
If I wanted to waste years of my lifetime behind a wheeldrive I would be a driver and at least get paid for it.
Personally, I’m waiting for the crash test results of this new typeface. Just sayin'
looks like yet another ripoff of Helvetica
If that's your level of nuance then you are totally right.
As an owner of a Volco Electric, I am happy that they are focusing on fonts and adding nicknames to cars instead of fixing the countless bugs and issues these cars have regarding software. /s
Issues I encountered: - The schedule for AC charging moves by 1 hour when DST changes. So someone thought let's ignore daylight saving times for that. - The app randomly says "could not start heating/cooling", but still started it. - The last few times, AC schedule and power limit were ignored by the car (so charged 16 A but the car said only 14 A allowed) - Randomly, the AC schedule is in a random timezone (like 7-9h lff), but just for one day. - Sound sometimes does not work, like at all. Reboot the center display helps, but takes a couple of minutes.
Most days, it feels like they don't drive their own cars.
Regardless, I think the font is somewhat nice.
Agreed. The software situation seems to be getting more confusing by the month. AAOS builds have suddenly jumped from 3.x to 4.x and the release notes say "various fixes". Um, like what? Was there a major update to something or not?
I'm still on a AAOS 2.x release from 2023 and will not upgrade at this point.
Why does a car company need to develop its own typeface?
Is it more cost-effective? Is it to have better control?
Is it for branding? (Although it does not appear unique/novel)
It’s not like it needs to solve something that isn’t addressed by other typefaces —at least I don’t see it. It’s not a radical departure from existing typefaces.
Part of making a typeface is making it subconsciously part of the brand. Though there's precedent for making a functional font in this use case as Airbus designed B612 for readability within their glass cockpits.
Maybe if the font wouldn't be so generic that could be true but it's... bland, and uninteresting. Could be replaced by 2 dozen other
> as Airbus designed B612 for readability within their glass cockpits.
weird it still has problem of O being similar to 0. I guess it's less of a problem in plane instruments but still
You get to decide which car you buy every X years. When the time comes, you pick one of the brands from the group you consider notable. Established brands do a lot of things to stay within that group. This one worked - we talk about it.
Half the value proposition of car culture is to symbol that you're better off than your neighbor etc. Of course branding is important, otherwise you would just buy the competitor's that also give you a couch with 4 wheels.
It beats the bad dream material of every car using Calibri as the only font.
Like what if Mercedes used Comic Sans.
Isn't that just Calibri?
To me it's indistinguishable from IBM Plex Sans, besides a simplified dingus on the lowercase g
Well thanks for that rabbit hole. I was hoping the dingus was the actual term, but sadly not.
For anyone needing some pub quiz trivia, a lower case g has the top half which is called the bowl, the bit top right is called the ear, then the bottom is called a loop tail when it's closed, or just a tail when it's open, and is joined by a link.
This is not a legible font. You can clearly see they did not distinguish uppercase o and 0 (zero) at all. Uppercase i and lowercase L are barely distinguishable. Classic font blunders.
That makes sense for code or technical text, but it is less relevant for car UIs. In an infotainment system you almost never see ambiguous strings where O vs 0 or I vs l matters. Everything is highly contextual, short, and glance-based. These fonts are tuned for distance, motion, glare, and quick recognition, not for reading arbitrary identifiers. If it tested poorly in real driving conditions that would be a real problem, but judging it by programmer font rules feels like the wrong yardstick.
Yikes - I thought it looked fine at first but that's a wide zero.