Continued: Volvo XC60: A tradeoff of fuel economy for safety

Sweden is a beautiful, amazing country -- between 2 and 4 p.m. on July 2. Otherwise, it's dark, cold, wet and deeply forlorn, a place of Norse hardship-as-honor, like the landscape of some old Led Zeppelin song.

Life in Sweden comes hard, and it must be nurtured and protected. I believe that if you analyze Swedish carmaker Volvo's mothering, mad-with-safety corporate ethos, you would arrive at this bit of cultural anthropology. It's either that or socialism.

Recently, the company announced a new goal: By 2020, its cars would be so safe that no one would die behind the wheel of a Volvo. This is a laudable ambition even as it is complete lunacy.

Really, Volvo, no one? We live in a world where people somehow manage to get their heads caught in their electric windows and drive into very large and prominent things, such as oceans.

The Norwegians. Sheesh. What are you going to do?

The Obama administration went all Swedish on us last week when it announced dramatically higher fuel economy standards to come into force in the next decade. These higher standards will mean a radical redefinition of safety, and Volvo's technology push is hitting the moment just right.

The new XC60 compact SUV includes the company's first generation of active collision prevention systems, called City Safety.

City Safety uses a laser-radar system to sweep the road ahead, scanning for stationary objects. At speeds under 20 mph, if the system senses the driver is about to hit an object, it will engage the brakes up to 50 percent of maximum braking force.

At speeds under 10 mph -- assuming the driver makes no effort to avoid the collision -- the XC60 will stop short of impact. At speeds between 10 and 19 mph, the impact may still occur but the force will be greatly diminished.

Now, unless you happen to be using a samurai sword to pick your teeth, such accidents are not life-threatening. Even so, according to Volvo, these fender-benders account for 75 percent of all vehicle collisions, and they are certainly among the most miserable of insurance claims, simply because so high a percentage of the repair cost is the out-of-pocket deductible.

From here, Volvo expects its cars will continue to reach out with millimeter-wave feelers to sense the road and react to emergent situations. The next generation of City Safety will likely work with the active cruise control so that a future Volvo would slow from 60 mph to a dead stop to avoid a collision if the driver is not paying attention (Mercedes-Benz's system works like that).

Lane departure warning and lane-keeping technology (where the car reads the road and helps the driver maintain what's called "lane discipline") are available on the Volvo and are now fairly common in the premium/luxury segments.

Such systems are obvious precursors to a sort of autopilot. Soon, cars will be able to talk to one another through vehicle-to-vehicle communications (V2V), allowing them to pack more closely on the freeway, saving time and fuel and making best use of available roadways.

Why have I taken you down this terribly safe and dull road? Because the Obama administration's proposed new rules for vehicle fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions will create an impasse between our need for fuel efficiency and our desire for increasing automotive safety.

Eventually, manufacturers are going to have to take weight off vehicles to wring more mileage out of them, and that means relying on less steel and more electronics. Volvo, which as a brand has often seemed rather linear and dowdy, suddenly looks quite avant-garde.

The XC60 -- a lovely, flowing shape, like a piece of Murano glass -- has many things going for it. It's got a horsy, turbocharged engine (3.0-liter inline six, 281 hp), a six-speed automatic, all-wheel drive, standard leather and -- this spring, at least -- a free panoramic sunroof thrown in as an introductory offer.

It cracks off clean, crisp, turbo-warbling acceleration in the 7-seconds-to-60-mph range, and the corner-to-corner handling is righteous. The car is also loaded with standard and optional safety features, including Volvo's side-impact protection system.

Trouble is, all this adds up to a hugely heavy machine, in excess of 4,200 pounds for a vehicle only 182 inches long. That heft directly correlates to the car's middling fuel economy: 16 miles per gallon, city; 22 mpg, highway. I observed fuel economy about a third less.

Future vehicle fuel economy depends on rewriting crash-test standards to accommodate electronics-based collision avoidance. After all, silicon is much lighter than steel.