A Thor Subject
At the time of writing, Volvo is pledging, in just three short years, to put a million electric vehicles on the road, ahead of all-electric ambitions. Walk down the street of any Canadian town and it seems like a tall order. Many of us, on paper, love the idea of spending significantly less on our weekly fill-ups, but we have to contend with a housing shortage, obscenely increasing living costs and perhaps most importantly, a lack of infrastructure. In the midst of this unrest, where exactly does the XC40 Recharge fit in?
Unlike other electric efforts, the XC40 Recharge is, at a glance, nearly indistinguishable from its gas-powered counterpart, save for a body-coloured grille panel and the charging port. It’s sleek, smooth and perfectly Scandinavian. We love Volvo’s styling and really cannot fault it in any way here. All we’d recommend is consider a colour that really shows off its lines. Namely, anything but black.
The language continues inside as well – with an elegant dashboard largely unchanged from its first iteration, except for one key component – the infotainment setup. Volvo’s outgoing proprietary system has been replaced with Google’s Android Automotive OS, which has been under development since 2014. This is the first Volvo to adopt the software, and you’ll soon start to see it across many brands including Honda, BMW, Ford, Lucid and others.
For anyone familiar with the Android OS, you may expect to find a great degree of freedom and customization, but it’s not quite the case here. In other words, sorry, you may not have an easy time trying to install an N64 emulator in your car. But the Google integration means you can issue voice commands directly in Google Maps, including finding out where the nearest charging station is. In some ways, we found the prior Volvo system more refined when navigating menus and settings, however. We’d still have loved to see some physical buttons for commonly accessed features like heating and air. Mazda’s interiors are proof these can be incorporated seamlessly into an elegant design.
The XC40 recharge is purported to deliver nearly 420 km of range on a full charge. Nice. Realistically, you won’t get that. But still, it’s a usable and generous amount for most of our daily lives. It’s not so large as to command a five-figure price tag, but it’s not anywhere near as small that a lack of home charging will be a threat to your mental well-being as you continuously eye your remaining range. But that 400-ish figure will quickly diminish every time you dare put your foot down, or turn on the optional heated seats, or just exist during Canada’s cold months.
EV’s all share a common performance trait – instant torque. In the XC40 Recharge, it’s not exactly a kick-you-to-the-back-of-your-seat kind of torque. It’s actually quite tame, compared to other electric options on the market, which is fine. Unless it’s got a polestar badge, the modern Volvo shines brightest when highlighting comfort and safety over speed. But that said, it’s certainly no slouch, packing the equivalent of 402 horsepower with its electric powerplant. Handling is quite impeccable too – thanks to the heft of its battery packs – which is another feature shared by every all-electric vehicle. They may feel light and airy, but they possess significant heft.
When the juice is running low, and the Google-powered assistance guides you to the nearest station, Volvo claims a fast-charging station will replenish 80% of its battery in about 40 minutes. With the right planning, long road trips are certainly doable, should the area possess the right infrastructure, which in Canada, is not always a possibility. But this is no fault of Volvo. However, it does make a vehicle like the XC40 Recharge a tough sell. At nearly $75,000, our potently optioned tester does not exactly scream affordable, which the XC40 should. Scale back on the options and you can settle for a somewhat cheaper base model at $59,950…which is still a hard pill to swallow, especially compared to the cheapest base model Tesla, at just over $35,000, albeit with up to 70-ish fewer kilometres on the total range. But that cheaper Tesla can still rely on the supercharger infrastructure.
All of that is a long-winded way of concluding that the Volvo is a very good EV, in spite of its shortcomings. If this is any indication of Volvo’s future electric plans, they are off to a resounding start. We just need city planners, engineers, architects and the powers that be to take tangible action in building the future we are often promised. Talk is cheap, and as long is it remains this way, vehicles like the XC40 Recharge won’t be.
Comments