Why NHTSA Is Urging Owners of 11,469 Volvo EVs and Hybrids to Stop Driving

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is telling owners of select 2020 through 2026 Volvo plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles to complete an urgent over-the-air update right away, warning that an affected car could lose its ability to brake entirely while coasting downhill. As of July 15, roughly 1,000 of the 11,469 vehicles covered by the recall still had not received the fix, and at least one serious incident tied to the defect has already been captured on video.

What Actually Goes Wrong

The defect traces back to an earlier over-the-air recall, numbered 25V-282, that Volvo issued to fix a rearview camera failure that could occur while backing up. The software patch Volvo pushed to resolve that camera problem introduced a separate flaw affecting the brakes. If an affected vehicle is in certain drive modes and coasts downhill for at least one minute and 40 seconds without the driver touching the accelerator or brake pedal, the car can lose its ability to brake altogether. Volvo opened a new recall, 25V-392, on June 12 to fix the follow-on defect, and NHTSA’s public warning this month is aimed at the roughly 1,000 owners who have not yet let the second, corrective update install.

What Volvo and NHTSA Are Telling Owners to Do

Volvo has told affected owners not to drive their vehicles until the software update completes, and to turn off regenerative braking in the meantime. Regenerative braking is tied to the coasting behavior that triggers the defect, so switching it off removes one part of the chain that leads to a loss of braking power. The update is delivered over the air, meaning it downloads and installs automatically once the vehicle has a cellular or Wi-Fi connection and is parked with the system able to complete the install, rather than requiring a dealer visit. Owners who are unsure whether their car has received the fix can check the vehicle’s software version through the Volvo app or by contacting Volvo directly. The company’s Customer Care Center can be reached at 800-458-1552 for owners who want to confirm their update status or who are having trouble getting the software to install.

Model years covered by the recall run from 2020 through 2026 and include Volvo’s plug-in hybrid and fully electric lineup, spanning both cars and SUVs equipped with regenerative braking systems tied to the affected software. That range covers vehicles like the XC90 Recharge, XC60 Recharge, S60 Recharge, and Volvo’s newer battery-electric models built on the same core platform and software stack, though owners should not assume their car is or is not included based on the model name alone. Owners who are unsure whether their specific vehicle identification number is included should check directly with Volvo or search their VIN through NHTSA’s recall lookup tool at nhtsa.gov/recalls, entering the 17-digit VIN found on the driver-side dashboard or door jamb sticker.

How a Software Fix Created a New Defect

The chain of events here is a reminder of how interconnected modern vehicle software has become. A patch written to solve one problem, a rearview camera that failed to display an image while backing up, changed code that also governs how the braking system behaves on long downhill coasts. Automakers increasingly rely on over-the-air updates to fix defects without requiring a dealer visit, which can get a repair to more owners faster than a traditional recall that requires scheduling a service appointment. The tradeoff is that a rushed or incompletely tested patch can introduce a new problem while fixing the original one, and the second defect here is more serious than the one it was meant to correct: a rearview camera failure is an inconvenience, while a total loss of braking capability while driving downhill is a life-threatening safety risk.

NHTSA’s decision to publish an urgent public warning, rather than let the over-the-air rollout run its course quietly, signals how seriously the agency is treating the roughly 1,000 vehicles still unpatched. Over-the-air updates depend on the vehicle being connected to the internet and parked long enough for the download and installation to complete, so a car that sits in a garage with weak cellular signal, or one whose owner is simply unaware an update is pending, can remain vulnerable well after the fix has shipped. This is not the first time an automaker’s remote software rollout has left a meaningful gap between the vehicles patched on day one and the stragglers still running old code weeks later, and it is a pattern regulators are watching more closely as more of the vehicle fleet becomes software-defined rather than purely mechanical.

Federal investigators have not said publicly how the second defect made it past Volvo’s internal testing before the June 12 recall, though NHTSA’s own filings show the agency treated the fix for 25V-282 and the follow-on brake defect from 25V-392 as connected events rather than two coincidental problems. Owners who received notice of the original rearview camera fix earlier this year should not assume that update, on its own, addressed the braking issue now under an urgent warning. The two recalls are related but separate, and only the June 12 update, 25V-392, resolves the brake defect.

Software-related recalls have become one of the fastest-growing categories NHTSA tracks as automakers add more connected features and driver-assistance systems tied to over-the-air updates. Tesla popularized the practice of shipping a fix to a parked car overnight rather than requiring a service appointment, and most major automakers, Volvo included, have followed with their own connected-vehicle platforms. The upside is real: a defect can reach an entire affected fleet within days rather than the weeks or months a mail-and-appointment recall can take. The Volvo case is a look at the other side of that speed, a fix that itself needed an urgent follow-up fix, and a reminder that faster does not always mean simpler when the underlying code governs something as basic as whether the brakes work.

What Owners Should Watch For

Any owner of a 2020 through 2026 Volvo plug-in hybrid or electric model should treat this as a same-day priority rather than something to handle next week. Confirm the vehicle’s software version, turn off regenerative braking if the update has not yet completed, and avoid long downhill drives, especially on mountain roads or steep grades, until Volvo confirms the fix has installed. Drivers who notice reduced braking response of any kind, especially after a long downhill coast, should stop the vehicle safely and contact Volvo immediately rather than continuing to drive.

Volvo has built its brand around a safety reputation that goes back decades, from the three-point seatbelt the company patented and gave away for free in 1959 to some of the industry’s earliest work on pedestrian detection and automatic emergency braking. A defect capable of causing complete brake failure sits at odds with that reputation, which helps explain why NHTSA moved to publicize the remaining unpatched vehicles rather than treat this as a routine, low-profile recall update.

Where to Get Help

Owners with questions about their vehicle’s recall status can call Volvo’s Customer Care Center at 800-458-1552, or contact the NHTSA Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236. NHTSA’s recall lookup tool at nhtsa.gov/recalls allows any owner to search by VIN and confirm whether a vehicle is included in recall 25V-392, and whether the corrective update has been recorded as complete. The defect requires a specific, sustained downhill coast with no pedal input, so most owners are unlikely to encounter it on typical daily driving. That does not change the urgency NHTSA and Volvo are putting behind getting the fix installed on every remaining vehicle before another incident occurs.

Sources:

• NHTSA
• The BRAKE Report
• Automotive World