For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Volvo C40 Recharge have pretensioners to tighten the seatbelts and eliminate dangerous slack in the event of a collision and force limiters to limit the pressure the belts will exert on the passengers. The Chevrolet Bolt doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The C40 Recharge’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Bolt doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Volvo C40 Recharge are height-adjustable to accommodate a wide variety of driver and passenger heights. A better fit can prevent injuries and the increased comfort also encourages passengers to buckle up. The Chevrolet Bolt doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
Both the C40 Recharge and Bolt have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The C40 Recharge has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The Bolt’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
The C40 Recharge has a standard front seat center airbag, which deploys between the driver and front passenger, protecting them from injuries caused by striking each other in serious side impacts. The Bolt doesn’t offer front seat center airbags.
The C40 Recharge has a standard Whiplash Protection System (WHIPS), which use a specially designed seat to protect the driver and front passenger from whiplash. During a rear-end collision, the WHIPS allows the backrest to travel backwards to cushion the occupants and the headrests move forward to prevent neck and spine injuries. At the same time the pretensioning seatbelts fire, removing slack from the belts. The Bolt doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The C40 Recharge has standard Post-impact braking, which automatically apply the brakes in the event of a crash to help prevent secondary collisions and prevent further injuries. The Bolt doesn’t offer a post collision braking system: in the event of a collision that triggers the airbags, more collisions are possible without the protection of airbags that may have already deployed.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The C40 Recharge has standard CTA Auto Brake that uses rear sensors to monitor and automatically apply the brakes to prevent a rear collision. The Bolt doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
The C40 Recharge has all-wheel drive to maximize traction under poor conditions, especially in ice and snow. The Bolt doesn’t offer all-wheel drive.
The C40 Recharge has a standard blind spot warning system which uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them. A system to reveal vehicles in the Bolt’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the C40 Recharge has a standard rear cross-path warning system, which uses sensors in the rear bumper to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side, helping the driver avoid collisions. Rear cross-path warning costs extra on the Bolt.
The C40 Recharge’s driver alert monitor detects an inattentive driver then sounds a warning and suggests a break. According to the NHTSA, drivers who fall asleep cause about 100,000 crashes and 1500 deaths a year. The Bolt doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the C40 Recharge and the Bolt have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras and available around view monitors.
The Volvo C40 Recharge weighs 1146 to 1181 pounds more than the Chevrolet Bolt. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
For its top level performance in IIHS driver and passenger-side small overlap frontal, moderate overlap frontal, side impact, roof strength and head restraint tests, its standard vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention system, its standard vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash prevention system, and its standard headlight’s “Good” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the C40 Recharge its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 101 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Bolt is not even a standard “Top Safety Pick.”