Five more Volvos earn highest safety award

Five more 2021 Volvos qualify for a Top Safety Pick+ award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, bringing the manufacturer’s total to 14.

The new winners include two large sedans, the S90 and plug-in hybrid S90 Recharge, as well as three wagons, the large V90 and V90 Cross Country and the midsize V60 Cross Country. For all these vehicles except the V60 Cross Country, these ratings apply to models built after September 2020.

Volvo already had the most 2021 Top Safety Pick+ winners of all manufacturers to be rated so far, earning nine when the initial awards were announced last month.

To qualify for the higher of the Institute’s two safety awards, a vehicle must have good ratings in all six IIHS crashworthiness tests — driver- and passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraints. It must also be available with a front crash prevention system that earns advanced or superior ratings in both the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations. While the lower-tier Top Safety Pick award winners must be available with good or acceptable headlights, to get the “plus,” vehicles must come with good or acceptable headlights across all trim levels and packages.

The headlight criterion is the reason the award applies to vehicles built after September 2020 for four of the five Volvo models. Previously, the S90, S90 Recharge and V90 came with marginal headlights across all trims. An earlier version of the V90 Cross Country was never evaluated.