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This is officially the second safety system demonstration in as many "Look at this!" announcements that has gone horribly wrong for Volvo. That's right, two. The first one was back in May and led to a new S60 estate crushing itself into the back of a truck - see the video here. This latest mishap occurred during a media demonstration to Australian journalists in Europe.

Now that the known-as-safe Volvo brand is officially owned by the Chinese, is this a sign of things to come?

The mechanism in question is part of Volvo's pedestrian avoidance technology, which makes use of cameras and radar in the nose of the vehicle to control the brakes and stability control system in order to reduce driver/pedestrian injuries. The object that the system was meant to detect was Bob the Dummy; as you can see in the vids below, it didn't detect a damn thing.

That's not to say the system is terrible; after all is said and done, it worked 75% of the time. Of the twelve runs, only one ended with Bob getting the full force of the Volvo unleashed on him, with the other two still being less than perfect. Some of the blame has been placed on a camera that doesn't work well in low-light conditions (infrared / night vision, guys?).

Volvo's Jonas Tisell, Active Safety Systems manager, told journalists, "The failure of the test was due to the dummy not being set up properly, therefore it did not give an echo enough for the system. So the dummy was not relevant in this situation." So...blame it on the dummy? And "not relevant"? How does being to blame (according to Volvo) translate as irrelevant?

More like Volvo just got caught with its pants down...again.

By Phil Alex

Via: Drive and Autoblog.com

Eyeing the successful BMW X3 compact SUV, Volvo’s stylish XC60 (click here) will go on sale in Europe during the second half of 2008, while sales in North America getting under way in early 2009. The XC90’s baby brother, will initially be available with the six-cylinder turbocharged T6 engine producing 285 Hp and two five-cylinder turbodiesels: the D5 producing 185 and the 2.4D with 163 Hp. All Wheel Drive (AWD) with Instant Traction is fitted as standard on all variants. –Video after the jump

Revealed ahead of the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, the XC60 is Volvo’s first offering in the compact SUV/Crossover category and it will compete against the likes of the BMW X3.The XC60 is equipped standard with All Wheel Drive (AWD) and is being launched with a choice of three engines, a turbocharged 6-cylinder 3.0-liter petrol unit with 285 HP and two variants of the D5 turbodiesel. Check out the official images and details in our previous post here. For the video, follow the jump. -Continued