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Volvo's plan for China: sell them on the clean air inside the car

Large Chinese cities aren't known for having clean air. Just this week, the Chinese city of Harbin filled with record levels of smog after starting the city's coal-fired heating system, according to CNN. But Li Shufu, the chairman of Geely, Volvo's parent company, says the automaker's astute attention to cabin comfort in areas such as air filtration is a selling point for the Swedish automaker in China, Forbes reports.
Shufu says when he is inside a Volvo, he feels like he's in Northern Europe, but when the door is opened, he feels like he's in Beijing. The chairman made the remarks at the fourth annual Global Auto Forum (GAF) in China (which also happened to be attended by Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, which was Volvo's owner until 2010), where he emphasized Geely's hands-off approach to managing Volvo, saying, "Geely and Volvo are brothers, not father and son."
While good filtration contributes to cabin comfort, the way we see it, Shufu also is allowing Volvo to play to its most well-known strength: safety. Smog protection via air filtration might not seem like the most important safety feature for a car in the US (unless you live in Los Angeles), but when you consider that Harbin's level of fine particles was up to 30 times higher than the World Health Organization's recommended standard on Tuesday, we'd think twice about that. Fine particles, which are 2.5 micrometers in diameter or less, are considered to be the most harmful to health.

Volvo calls in S60 T5 over oil pressure indicator

As anyone with a driver's license should be able to tell you, the oil pressure indicator on a car is a vital feature. If you don't have enough oil pressure, your engine could seize up, leaving you stranded and causing catastrophic damage for both your automobile and your wallet. Worryingly, then, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that the oil pressure indicator lamp on certain Volvo S60 models is prone to failure, prompting the manufacturer to issue a recall.
The issue pertains to MY2011-2012 Volvo S60s with turbocharged five-cylinder engines manufactured between June 22, 2010 and May 14, 2012. All told, precisely 30,929 units are affected by the recall campaign. The owners of affected models will be notified by Volvo to bring in their cars to their local dealer for a software update. See the official notice below for details.

Volvo debuts new Drive-E four-cylinder engines

Volvo is introducing a new engine family based on its new Drive-E philosophy, which encompasses "all innovations made to reduce the impact on the environment," the automaker says. Less cylinders allows for less environmental impact, so the new engines are all four-pots. They also were designed to pair easily with Volvo's upcoming hybrid drive system, which "will reach power figures in the V8 territory" and play a "dominant part of the top end of [Volvo's] range," says Derek Crabb, Vice President Powertrain Engineering. Volvo also says we can expect "power curves that give exciting drivability compared with engines with more cylinders."
Volvo says some versions of the engine were designed targeting best-in-class fuel economy. There are both gasoline and diesel options, but the latter of which isn't scheduled for US consumption. Instead, the US will be offered two states of tune of the gasoline Drive-E engine for front-wheel-drive vehicles. Some of Volvo's current all-wheel-drive powertrains will remain available in the US until the company has transitioned solely to the new, fuel-efficient inline-fours.