Volvo Cars is introducing a new optional vehicle safety application called Safety Coach that monitors and scores driver behaviour in real time to help motorists improve their driving and potentially secure lower insurance rates.
The technology evaluates key driving metrics, including braking, acceleration, and cornering, displaying live insights and driving tips directly through the car's infotainment screen and the official Volvo Cars mobile app.
Each participating driver receives a dynamic Safety Coach score rated out of 100, encouraging motorists to adopt smoother and safer habits behind the wheel. While the software is voluntary and intended to empower drivers to reduce their insurance premiums, the rollout has raised privacy concerns among critics worried about increasing surveillance of vehicle owners.
Initial deployment of Safety Coach begins this August in Sweden and Norway, before expanding globally to additional international markets, including the United States, Europe, and the United Kingdom. Volvo Cars, the luxury automotive manufacturer headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, has confirmed that the software will be available for model year 2020 vehicles and newer equipped with Google-based infotainment systems.
How the Safety Coach app works
The Safety Coach score is calculated over a rolling 14-day window, with higher scores reflecting smoother and more mindful vehicle operation. It is technically possible for a driver to achieve a perfect score of 100 by maintaining safe habits.
According to Alexander Franke, global head of insurance at Volvo Cars, the assessment focuses on four specific types of driving events: excessive speeding, hard braking, aggressive cornering, and rapid acceleration. These incidents affect the overall rating depending on their frequency, severity, and duration.
Drivers can actively improve their ratings by sticking to safe speeds, braking early and gradually, slowing down before entering corners, and taking turns smoothly.
Franke stressed that the app is intended solely to support driver improvement rather than impose financial penalties. "Safety Coach is designed to support and encourage safer driving, not penalise the driver," Franke said, noting that sharing driving data with insurance companies remains entirely optional.
Privacy controls and data sharing
Addressing potential privacy anxieties and queries regarding telematics tracking, Franke explained that the system operates on a strict double opt-in model. Motorists must first choose whether to activate Safety Coach in their vehicles, and then separately decide whether to share their telemetry data with an affiliated insurance partner.
Collected personal data is processed exclusively to generate driving insights for the user and is shared only between Volvo Cars and its technology partner, Cambridge Mobile Telematics. Telematics technology combines telecommunications and vehicular data tracking to analyze driver performance and vehicle diagnostics.
Motorists retain the ability to withdraw from the program at any point. "Drivers may also later opt-out of Safety Coach at any time in which case the personal data collection is immediately ceased," Franke stated. He added that the duration of data sharing required before receiving usage-based insurance discounts will depend on specific market offers, though the score itself always reflects the preceding 14 days of driving.
Artificial intelligence and vehicle safety
The Safety Coach platform represents part of Volvo's broader strategy to integrate artificial intelligence into driver safety tools. Franke highlighted that the brand utilizes modern digital tools to elevate passenger safety and customer convenience, noting that Volvo also recently integrated Google Gemini into its vehicle systems to simplify driver interaction and enhance the overall driving experience.
The app relies on a software collaboration between Volvo Cars and Massachusetts-based Cambridge Mobile Telematics, which provides the underlying algorithms. CMT operates as the world's largest telematics and AI provider for mobile safety. The driving advice delivered to users is further tailored using Volvo's proprietary real-world accident research database.
Mikael Ljung Aust, driver behaviour expert at Volvo Cars, emphasized that predictability plays a crucial role in preventing road accidents. "Our research shows that many accidents involve some form of surprise," Ljung Aust said. "What helps prevent that is predictability."
Ljung Aust explained that remaining within standard speed bounds and avoiding sudden maneuvers makes a vehicle far easier for surrounding motorists to anticipate. "Supporting safe driver behaviours is a key piece of the puzzle we need to solve to reach zero collisions, and tools like Safety Coach can help turn these insights into safer everyday habits," he added.
Compatible models and global rollout
Following its inaugural launch in Sweden and Norway, Safety Coach will be introduced in the US, across European markets, and in the UK, where insurance-linked promotions will accompany the deployment. Although Volvo has not announced a specific UK release date, the manufacturer confirmed that compatible vehicles in the UK will match the Scandinavian specification.
The application will be compatible with model year 2020 and newer Volvo vehicles operating on Google Android Automotive infotainment systems. Compatible models include the EX60, XC40, EX40, EC40, S60, V60, XC60, XC90, V90, EX90, and the ES90 luxury saloon. However, Volvo explicitly confirmed that the compact EX30 electric crossover is excluded from compatibility.
Industry adoption of telematics technology
Volvo is not the first vehicle manufacturer to deploy trip-monitoring software to influence driver behavior. In 2024, French carmaker Renault introduced a similar Safety Score feature across its vehicle lineup, assigning owners a score out of 100 at the end of each journey.
Renault designed its system to foster friendly competition among drivers, encouraging higher scores to enhance overall road safety. Under the Renault framework, scores are reduced whenever onboard Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) intervene during a trip, including lane-keeping assistance, automated emergency braking (AEB), and Intelligent Speed Assistance alerts.
Telematics-based insurance schemes, often called pay-how-you-drive policies, have gained widespread popularity across the automotive sector. These platforms allow insurers to evaluate individual risk through actual driving behavior, providing younger motorists and new drivers with an opportunity to lower traditionally high insurance premiums.
