For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Volvo XC40 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 Hyundai Nexo doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The XC40 Recharge’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Nexo doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the XC40 Recharge and Nexo have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The XC40 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 Nexo’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 Volvo XC40 Recharge has a standard driver’s side knee airbag mounted low on the dashboard. The knee airbag helps prevent the driver from sliding under the seatbelts or the main frontal airbag; this keeps the driver better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. A knee airbag also helps keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Nexo doesn’t offer knee airbags.
The XC40 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 Nexo doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The XC40 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 Nexo 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 XC40 Recharge has a standard CTA Auto Brake that uses rear sensors to monitor for objects to the rear and automatically applies the brakes to prevent a collision. The Nexo doesn’t offer automatic braking for stationary objects directly to the rear.
The XC40 Recharge has all-wheel drive to maximize traction under poor conditions, especially in ice and snow. The Nexo doesn’t offer all-wheel drive.
Both the XC40 Recharge and the Nexo have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning, driver alert monitors and available around view monitors.
The Volvo XC40 Recharge weighs 625 to 751 pounds more than the Hyundai Nexo. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.