For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Volvo S90 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 BMW 330e doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
For enhanced safety, the front seat shoulder belts of the Volvo S90 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 BMW 330e doesn’t offer height-adjustable seat belts.
Both the S90 and 330e have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The S90 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 330e’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 S90 offers optional built in child booster seats. They’re more crash worthy than an added child seat because of their direct attachment to the seat. BMW doesn’t offer the convenience and security of a built-in child booster seat in the 330e. Their owners must carry a heavy booster seat in and out of the vehicle; S90 owners can just fold their built-in child seat up or down.
Over 200 people are killed each year when backed over by motor vehicles. The S90 has 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 330e doesn’t offer backup collision prevention brakes.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, All-Wheel Drive is standard on the S90. But it costs extra on the 330e.
The S90 has a standard 360° Camera to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The 330e only offers a rear monitor and front and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the sides.
The S90 has a standard blind spot warning system that 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 330e’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the S90 has standard Cross Traffic Alert and Braking Intervention automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. BMW charges extra for Cross Traffic Warning on the 330e and the 330e’s Cross Traffic Warning does not include automatic braking.
Both the S90 and the 330e have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, plastic fuel tanks, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, post-collision automatic braking systems, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras and driver alert monitors.
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 “Acceptable” rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the S90 its highest rating: “Top Safety Pick Plus” for 2022, a rating granted to only 128 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The 330e has not been fully tested, yet.