How car seatbelts are about to get smarter
Published on: Fri, Jun 06, 2025
By: ETX Daily Up Text Size: Volvo's new multi-adaptive safety belt is designed to personalise protection for people in different scenarios. (Volvo pic) PARIS: Automaker Volvo has unveiled a new generation of multi-adaptive safety belts designed to better protect all vehicle occupants by adapting to their body shape and to changing traffic conditions. Volvo patented the seat belt that everyone knows today in 1959, ie, a three-point model with a lap belt and a diagonal shoulder belt.
Advertisement The company decided to make the patent royalty-free, and other manufacturers quickly adopted it. Today, Volvo has decided to make the seat belt smarter. Its new model uses a wealth of data collected by internal and external sensors to truly personalise the protection of each occupant. For example, the seat belt adjustment will adapt to the physical characteristics of each individual, such as their height, weight, body type, and, most importantly, their seating position. In the event of a serious crash or sudden braking, a taller person will benefit from a higher tension setting to reduce the risk of head injury. On the other hand, in the event of a milder collision and if the occupant is smaller, the seat belt will be less strained, reducing the risk of rib fractures, for example. All this has been made possible by significantly increasing the number of load-limiting profile variations, which manage the force applied to occupants in the event of an accident. The manufacturer used a database of more than 80,000 occupants involved in real-world accidents to validate this innovation. As such, this new seat belt expands the load-limiting profiles from three to eleven, and increases the possible number of settings to respond to each situation according to occupants' profiles and the speed of the car. This multi-adaptive safety belt is expected to make its debut in the upcoming Volvo EX60, an electric SUV due out in 2026. Volvo also explains that the system will improve over time thanks to future over-the-air software updates.
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