Volvo returns to proven values VOLVO has realised that safe is better than sexy. After several years adrift, as it changed owners and flirted with sexier ads, the Swedish carmaker is in the midst of an $US11 billion ($A11.57 billion) turnaround plan that it hopes will nearly double worldwide sales to 800,000 by 2020. Volvo is building new plants in Sweden and China, introducing new vehicles and developing its own infotainment system that it says will be less distracting. The company is also hiring a new ad agency and working on a bolder message emphasising Volvo's reputation for safety. One idea that could make it into the company's ads: Volvo's internal goal of having no deaths or serious injuries in new Volvo cars by 2020. Volvo doesn't currently know how many people die each year in its cars, since most countries don't keep that data. But it says independent studies in Sweden have shown that Volvo passengers are several more times likely to escape injury after a crash. During a recent US trip to visit its dealers here, Volvo's top executives said the brand's ads have strayed from Volvo's traditional strengths and emphasised different things depending on where they ran. In 2010, for example, Volvo ran North American ads positioning the S60 sedan as "naughty" to attract young buyers, but it just confused people who knew the brand for its innovative safety features. "Our strength is what we have built over decades," marketing chief Alain Visser said. And it didn't work. Volvo has lost buyers younger than 55 over the past five years, and now has a higher percentage of buyers over 55 - 44 per cent - than some of its key competitors, including Audi, BMW, Acura and Infiniti, according to Edmunds.com. Volvo's US sales have tumbled by more than half over the past decade, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank. The company is frank about why. Volvo had to regroup and develop new cars after Ford Motor Co - which owned Volvo for just over a decade - sold the brand to Chinese automaker Geely in 2010. In the meantime, its ageing models couldn't compete with other luxury brands like Audi. The first of Volvo's all-new vehicles, the XC90 seven-passenger SUV, will go on sale in the US at the end of next year. It's the first time in 12 years that the XC90 has been fully redesigned. A new S40 small car will follow. Until those cars arrive, Volvo will have trouble attracting buyers who are sceptical of the brand, says Karl Brauer, a senior analyst with Kelley Blue Book. "Nobody knows what sorts of products Volvo will produce under the new owners," he said.