[clyde]

What bothers me about the idea of starting a safety argument at 112mph is that 112mph will probably have an imperceptible impact on traffic fatalities. It's also not very fast and perfectly reasonable on tens of thousands of miles of Interstate and US highways outside of built up metro areas. It's even often a sane and reasonable speed on the NJTP northbound from Exits 1-5 (but almost never southbound).

Anyway...

My initial guess is that capping speeds at 112mph will not hurt Volvo's sales or their reputation among their buyers, but will cut their costs by, um, a lot.

If your cars can't go over 112mph, you don't need to design all the parts and systems to perform over 112mph. You don't need to test them over 112mph. Parts costs go down, initially making new car sales more profitable and, later, saving customers money post-warranty with lower parts replacement costs.

If they really wanted to spark a safety conversation to have a safety conversation and safety based outcome, they'd cap speeds at 80mph or less.