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.
> Sound sometimes does not work, like at all. Reboot the center display helps, but takes a couple of minutes.
This one is really bad because it turns out that the turn signal clicks play through the sound system. So when this bug happens, you lose a key bit of feedback from the car until you pull over and restart the system.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My wife has a 2024 Volvo and I expected to hate the touchscreen, but it's been fine. The reason why it's fine is that the functions you might need to adjust while driving (hazard lights, defrosters, sound volume) all have physical controls. So the touchscreen winds up being used for things which are ancillary to the operation of the car. It's not like Tesla which went all the way in removing physical buttons.
The issue I've had with the Volvo has been that the software is pretty bad. Sometimes the sound just... doesn't come on unless you reboot the system, which is really bad because it turns out that the turn signal clicks play through the stereo rather than being a discrete component. Similarly, I would say about half the time I drive the car it doesn't tilt the side mirrors down when I back up (as I have set in the settings). In my mind, these software issues, while they don't render the car impossible to drive or anything, are completely unacceptable for a car that costs $60,000. They really need to do better.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I dont know how much employee nationality matters (if it did some of the big tech companies could be thought of as Indian ;-), even though they're American owned).
To me a 'chinese company' is headquartered in china, has predominantly chinese employees, and the amount of its operations in china must be larger than any other single country it does business in.
The ownership of Volvo and Jaguar by Ford is interesting because it effected them differently - with Jaguar it arguably resulted in a significant improvement in quality and reduction of vehicle complexity, Volvo seemed to be less effected by its Ford period than Jag however.
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.
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.
This doesn't seem like that big of a problem to me. Yeah, your kids are going to be amused when they find out they can turn on the heated seat. Then you tell them not to do that. If they still do it, then you hand out punishments as appropriate. The kids will decide that the amusement of messing with your heated seat isn't worth the consequences and you go on with life.
I don't use voice so I couldn't be sure, but in the video, the instructor pushes a button to activate Voice. So that may vary depending on the specific year and model.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
This is a bit ridiculous in practice. The reality is that products have many, many vectors of experience. Like a house does. If you have a broken window and a leaky pipe, you can hire 2 different people to fix both of those things separately...
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.
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.
The letter 'O' is quite okay'ish in that it's very wide in that new Volvo font, so you cannot mistake it for the digit '0'. But the digit '0' could definitely be mistaken for the letter 'O'. The only fonts who really fixes that are those using a slashed or a dotted '0' and a wide letter 'O' but they are very few.
When coding I use my own font (a mix of Terminus for most chars, Monaco for some symbols like the @ sign, and then a few fixes for obvious font defects).
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.
And what would you say is more conductive to safety -- having to use the giant tablet and READ it to use the temperature/volume controls, or having a physical, tactile buttons and knobs that can be found and operated without ever taking the eyes off the road?
If you say that making a font easier to read increases the safety more I think NCAP would like a word.
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.
Volvo, the company who could not make better cars and instead limits them citing “safety”. But sure, create fonts because reasons. They could try to be better at engineering.
True, but by limiting them they showed that they can’t keep up with their competition. So they play the safety game. You know… “think of the children” version for cars.
>the company who could not make better cars and instead limits them citing “safety”.
They say:
>The problem with speeding is that above certain speeds, in-car safety technology and smart infrastructure design are no longer enough to avoid severe injuries and fatalities in the event of an accident.
And, frankly, they're right: you cannot engineer your way out of the laws of physics.
I did not say “crash without any issues”, I said “they can do 250 or more without any issues”. And they are super safe on the road, meaning they can sustain the speed for prolonged periods of time and not break in any way.
My issue is that Volvo initially proposed that all cars made in Europe be limited to 180 or below. And when their idea was rejected, they started to claim safety.
I see no reason not to believe them. This is the company that invented the seat belt and made the patent free to all other manufacturers. They seem genuinely passionate about reducing road deaths regardless of make.
Volvo is technically capable of making a car that drives 250 kph. That was the top speed of the Volvo 850 T-5R way back in 1995, so its a bold claim to suggest that lowering their top speeds is because they're incapable.
But "250 without issues" is easy to achieve under perfect conditions, but it is far from safe. The driver only has to sneeze at that speed, or hit a puddle of oil or some debris dropped by another car, and it is game over. They're right that safety tech won't save you at those speeds.
Volvo doesn't want anyone dying in their cars, regardless of whether its the driver's fault. Nobody needs to drive that fast and "people who will drive at >180 on the autobahn" is not a common enough use case worldwide to be worth optimizing for.
chrisandchris | a day ago
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.
joezydeco | 23 hours ago
I'm still on a AAOS 2.x release from 2023 and will not upgrade at this point.
bigstrat2003 | 3 hours ago
This one is really bad because it turns out that the turn signal clicks play through the sound system. So when this bug happens, you lose a key bit of feedback from the car until you pull over and restart the system.
mc32 | a day ago
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.
exitb | a day ago
matsemann | 23 hours ago
6SixTy | 22 hours ago
PunchyHamster | 6 hours ago
> 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
The_President | 16 hours ago
Like what if Mercedes used Comic Sans.
DeepYogurt | a day ago
viraptor | a day ago
omnimus | 9 hours ago
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.
krick | 9 hours ago
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.
omnimus | 8 hours ago
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.
embedding-shape | a day ago
I'm afraid that legacy is long lost, Volvo is a very different company today than it used to be.
SoftTalker | a day ago
embedding-shape | 23 hours ago
But it does exist, just isn't the same as it used to be, back in the "seat-belts is for everyone" era.
KomoD | a day ago
Give me buttons, not a font.
mikepurvis | a day ago
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.
skrebbel | 23 hours ago
colechristensen | 23 hours ago
skrebbel | 23 hours ago
dentalnanobot | 21 hours ago
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.
bigstrat2003 | 3 hours ago
The issue I've had with the Volvo has been that the software is pretty bad. Sometimes the sound just... doesn't come on unless you reboot the system, which is really bad because it turns out that the turn signal clicks play through the stereo rather than being a discrete component. Similarly, I would say about half the time I drive the car it doesn't tilt the side mirrors down when I back up (as I have set in the settings). In my mind, these software issues, while they don't render the car impossible to drive or anything, are completely unacceptable for a car that costs $60,000. They really need to do better.
MisterTea | a day ago
CodingJeebus | a day ago
lawgimenez | 23 hours ago
RankingMember | 23 hours ago
dentalnanobot | 21 hours ago
SoftTalker | 14 hours ago
joezydeco | 23 hours ago
systemtest | 23 hours ago
Ambroos | 16 hours ago
brnt | 8 hours ago
brnt | 8 hours ago
neogodless | 4 hours ago
throw20251220 | an hour ago
neogodless | 4 hours ago
joezydeco | an hour ago
The_President | 16 hours ago
"Welcome to your Volvo, let's get started"
"Please wait while we prepare your car!"
"Something went wrong."
neogodless | 4 hours ago
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"
The_President | 3 hours ago
Arch Linux car would just be a pallet of raw materials with a link to a wiki.
annoyingnoob | a day ago
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.
omnimus | 9 hours ago
annoyingnoob | 4 hours ago
What is innovative here? https://www.volvocars.com/us/news/innovation/
homeonthemtn | a day ago
ryukoposting | 16 hours ago
mikeayles | 11 hours ago
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.
systemtest | a day ago
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.
matsemann | 23 hours ago
colechristensen | 23 hours ago
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.
tekkk | 23 hours ago
systemtest | 23 hours ago
Volvo Cars has been bought by Geely. That is not comparable.
KomoD | 23 hours ago
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"
bryanlarsen | 23 hours ago
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".
ddalex | 13 hours ago
echelon | 11 hours ago
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.
cjblomqvist | 7 hours ago
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.
drob518 | 7 hours ago
aplummer | 23 hours ago
brewtide | 22 hours ago
It's got a few issues, but the thing has been a beast. Not sure how Chinese it is however.
bzzzt | 10 hours ago
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.
chinathrow | 9 hours ago
throw20251220 | an hour ago
amarant | 23 hours ago
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.
PeterStuer | 10 hours ago
mikeryan | 23 hours ago
garyfirestorm | 23 hours ago
cr125rider | 16 hours ago
Aloha | 23 hours ago
0manrho | 19 hours ago
Aloha | 54 minutes ago
To me a 'chinese company' is headquartered in china, has predominantly chinese employees, and the amount of its operations in china must be larger than any other single country it does business in.
The ownership of Volvo and Jaguar by Ford is interesting because it effected them differently - with Jaguar it arguably resulted in a significant improvement in quality and reduction of vehicle complexity, Volvo seemed to be less effected by its Ford period than Jag however.
emehex | 23 hours ago
Volvo Group - sells trucks - publicly traded - Swedish
Volvo Cars - sells cars - not publicly traded - 100% owned by Geely (Chinese)
Volvo Cars ≠ Volvo Group
decryption | 20 hours ago
Geely owns around 79% of the shares, with the rest split up between pension funds and private equity.
2143 | 13 hours ago
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.
fakedang | 10 hours ago
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.
Kon5ole | 7 hours ago
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.
tjomk | a day ago
dentalnanobot | 21 hours ago
ryukoposting | 16 hours ago
pests | 10 hours ago
vladvasiliu | 6 hours ago
bigstrat2003 | 4 hours ago
jaas | 8 hours ago
neogodless | 4 hours ago
1. Press "heat controls" space on tablet. This "expands" the controls, showing steering wheel heat, seat heat, seat ventilation.
2. Press "seat heat" once to be on High (and more presses to get to Medium, Low or back to Off)
Wish it was a button. Buttons are much better for this sort of thing.
In this video, the Volvo controls are identical to Polestar, and, again, require at least two presses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D29Nm-fwsHQ
While it's great to have a choice to do so, I personally detest voice controls (which require a button press, and a memorized phrase.)
aednichols | 2 hours ago
I would still like to have a button-only option, of course.
neogodless | 2 hours ago
arjie | 23 hours ago
dotancohen | 6 hours ago
bayindirh | 5 hours ago
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.
daft_pink | 23 hours ago
Ericson2314 | 23 hours ago
jbverschoor | 13 hours ago
lomase | 10 hours ago
linksnapzz | 22 hours ago
1.) Go back to actual buttons/dials (with the old font, please)
2.) Fix the comically bad horrifying electronics issues the new models have.
spankalee | 22 hours ago
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.
0manrho | 20 hours ago
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.
jibal | 17 hours ago
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.
mikestorrent | 17 hours ago
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.
jibal | 16 hours ago
buran77 | 6 hours ago
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.
TheOtherHobbes | 6 hours ago
https://news.mit.edu/2012/agelab-automobile-dashboard-fonts-...
quadrifoliate | 5 hours ago
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.
gregoriol | 5 hours ago
bayindirh | 5 hours ago
hbosch | 3 hours ago
herpdyderp | 16 hours ago
The_President | 16 hours ago
techwizrd | 15 hours ago
fnord77 | 14 hours ago
omnimus | 9 hours ago
dotancohen | 6 hours ago
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.
bayindirh | 6 hours ago
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.
dotancohen | 4 hours ago
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.
TacticalCoder | 4 hours ago
When coding I use my own font (a mix of Terminus for most chars, Monaco for some symbols like the @ sign, and then a few fixes for obvious font defects).
It's very hard to find proper fonts.
PunchyHamster | 6 hours ago
bayindirh | 5 hours ago
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.
jjtheblunt | 5 hours ago
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.
bayindirh | 5 hours ago
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.
subscribed | 47 minutes ago
If you say that making a font easier to read increases the safety more I think NCAP would like a word.
subscribed | 5 hours ago
> 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...
UniverseHacker | 5 hours ago
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.
davidjade | 5 hours ago
UniverseHacker | 5 hours ago
subscribed | 2 hours ago
This, giant tablet that is the main interface to everything and car being a death trap in case of fire are my three dealbreakers.
Well, nazi at the helm being the fourth one.
ExoticPearTree | 3 hours ago
https://www.volvocars.com/intl/media/press-releases/5ABB4F35...
estearum | 3 hours ago
ExoticPearTree | 3 hours ago
estearum | 3 hours ago
ExoticPearTree | 2 hours ago
estearum | 2 hours ago
Competing on top speed is very very stupid
You’re a BMW driver aren’t you?
throw20251220 | an hour ago
ThePowerOfFuet | 3 hours ago
They say:
>The problem with speeding is that above certain speeds, in-car safety technology and smart infrastructure design are no longer enough to avoid severe injuries and fatalities in the event of an accident.
And, frankly, they're right: you cannot engineer your way out of the laws of physics.
ExoticPearTree | 3 hours ago
estearum | 3 hours ago
I'm doubtful.
ExoticPearTree | 2 hours ago
My issue is that Volvo initially proposed that all cars made in Europe be limited to 180 or below. And when their idea was rejected, they started to claim safety.
estearum | 2 hours ago
Requesting that all car mfgs limit their top speeds is 100% compatible with an earnest desire for increased road safety.
throw20251220 | an hour ago
randerson | an hour ago
Volvo is technically capable of making a car that drives 250 kph. That was the top speed of the Volvo 850 T-5R way back in 1995, so its a bold claim to suggest that lowering their top speeds is because they're incapable.
But "250 without issues" is easy to achieve under perfect conditions, but it is far from safe. The driver only has to sneeze at that speed, or hit a puddle of oil or some debris dropped by another car, and it is game over. They're right that safety tech won't save you at those speeds.
Volvo doesn't want anyone dying in their cars, regardless of whether its the driver's fault. Nobody needs to drive that fast and "people who will drive at >180 on the autobahn" is not a common enough use case worldwide to be worth optimizing for.
lambdaone | 3 hours ago