For enhanced safety, the front and rear seat shoulder belts of the Volvo XC60 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 Maserati Grecale doesn’t offer pretensioners for its rear seat belts.
The XC60’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Grecale doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
The Volvo XC60 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. Maserati doesn’t offer the convenience and security of a built-in child booster seat in the Grecale. Their owners must carry a heavy booster seat in and out of the vehicle; XC60 owners can just fold their built-in child seat up or down.
Using vehicle speed sensors and seat sensors, smart airbags in the XC60 deploy with different levels of force or don’t deploy at all to help better protect passengers of all sizes in different collisions. The XC60’s side airbags will shut off if a child is leaning against the door. The Grecale’s side airbags don’t have smart features and will always deploy full force.
The XC60 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 Grecale doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
The XC60 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 Grecale 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.
The XC60’s standard lane departure warning system alerts a temporarily inattentive driver when the vehicle begins to leave its lane and gently nudges the vehicle back towards its lane. A lane departure warning system costs extra on the Grecale.
The XC60 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 and moves the vehicle back into its lane. A system to reveal vehicles in the Grecale’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the XC60 has standard Cross Traffic Alert and Braking Intervention automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. Maserati charges extra for Rear Cross Path on the Grecale and the Grecale’s Rear Cross Path does not include automatic braking.
Both the XC60 and the Grecale have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, all wheel drive, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, rearview cameras and available around view monitors.
For its performance in IIHS driver-side and passenger-side small overlap frontal, moderate overlap frontal, updated side impact, headlight, and daytime pedestrian crash prevention testing, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety grants the XC60 the rating of “Top Safety Pick” for 2023, a rating granted to only 98 vehicles tested by the IIHS. The Grecale has not been tested, yet.