As a constant partner to Volvo Ocean Race, the Swedish manufacturer decided to launch a special car to celebrate the 2017/2018 season.

The Volvo V90 Cross Country all-road estate will be sold with a special edition. Buyers of the car will also contribute directly to helping understand the health of our oceans. To support the Volvo Ocean Race’s Science Programme around ocean plastics, the company will donate EUR 100 for each of the first 3,000 V90 Cross Country Volvo Ocean Race cars it plans to build. The resulting total donation will reach EUR 300,000.

The Volvo Ocean Race Science Programme equips boats in this year’s race with a variety of sensors that will capture data from some of the remotest parts of the world’s oceans. This includes temperatures, barometric pressure, currents and wind speed, which will help contribute to more accurate weather forecasts and climate models used by scientists globally. 

Furthermore, the boats will measure levels of salinity, dissolved CO2 and algae in the sea water around them. Combined with other data on microplastics, these measurements will help create a more complete picture of the scale of plastic pollution and its impact on ocean life.