All Volvo cars now limited to 180km/h

Volvo has followed through with its plans to introduce electronic speed-limiters on every car it sells in a bid to improve road safety.

Announced last year as part of its Vision 2020 safety pledge, every car it now sells will have a new artificial speed-limiter that restricts speeds to no more than 180km/h.

Despite feeling the pressure from buyers in Germany, where there are still stretches of unrestricted autobahn, Volvo's new limit is far lower than the 250km/h self-imposed limit applied by its German rivals.

It's thought an even lower speed limit was considered by Volvo, but the 180km/h cap was thought to best balance safety with buyer attitudes.

But Volvo has already announced that, in the future, it will introduce two further speed-limiting technologies to cut fatalities.

These include a new smart speed control system that automatically adjusts vehicle speeds to suit driving conditions and an even more sophisticated semi-autonomous speed management system that will automatically cut speed in geofenced areas, like roads beside schools or hospitals, or accident black spots.

Fuelling the car-maker's obsession with speed is research from the US National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, which revealed that in 2017 alone 25 per cent of all traffic accidents in the USA were caused by excessive speed.

As part of its plans to reduce fatal or serious road accidents involving Volvos to zero, the car-maker says it will soon address both driver intoxication and driver distraction with a new system that employs in-car cameras and on-board sensors.

If the car thinks you're driving drunk, or tired, its semi-autonomous driving aids will take control of your vehicle and bring you safely to a halt – but only if you ignore all its warnings to pull over.