(upbeat music)
- You know Volvo, they sell bricks
that are uncompromisingly safe,
but they have a bit of a problem.
Almost all cars are safe now.
Fortunately, Volvo is synonymous
with something else, sleeper.
And given the XC40 Recharge has over 400 horsepower
and three and a half civics of torque,
this thing's a certified sleeper.
And fortunately, this thing is not just fast.
With an infotainment designed by Google
and a commitment to no nonsense
unlike like other EVs this thing's really nice to live with.
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(upbeat music)
12 years ago, Volvo was in a tough spot
with Ford nearly running them into the ground.
Since being acquired by Chinese car manufacturer Geely
in 2010, for a fraction of what Ford paid
things have been looking up.
Geely was able to turn around the company
with a devious plan Ford never could have dreamt of,
give Volvo money and full autonomy.
The focus now is on beating the Germans
with Scandinavian simplicity,
and the sales numbers show the plan has been working.
Now, Volvo is aggressively investing in electric vehicles
with all their models planned to be fully electric by 2030.
So, how good is their first entry?
From the outside, I think the XC40 Recharge looks great.
Sometimes when a car goes from gas to electric,
it ends up looking like a fish
with its face smushed against a glass pane.
Volvo has shown us that the grill delete
doesn't have to look terrible.
Just take it in for a second, it's pretty
and you don't have to assemble it.
Given the marketing photos,
you might think there is a generous frunk but...
Yeah, not exactly.
There's space for a charging cable and not much more.
But there's a very Volvo reason
for why the frunk sucks, safety.
With the removal of the engine
and addition of a couple thousand pounds,
they needed to put a massive reinforcement structure
under here to improve safety and chassis rigidity.
But yeah, less of a frunk and more of a furse.
The interior is simple.
It feels nice although not over the top luxurious.
If you have a Louis Vuitton earbuds,
it might be a bit too plain but I'm a fan.
The suede and vegan leather seats are extremely comfortable
and the start button is below my butt.
So, let's give it a go.
(upbeat music)
Flooring it not only sends you back in the seat
but the whole thing sits down.
Just planting the rear tires,
as the front scramble for traction.
It's uncanny how this can just put down power,
no matter the conditions.
We're on winters and in the wet
it still can do like 4.9 seconds, zero to 60,
which is the same as the Model Y.
And other publications have measured 4.2 seconds,
zero to 60, which is crazy given how much this thing weighs.
The way it silently accelerates allows you
to be a BMW driver, just chopping commuters at lights
and getting into those tight spots without feeling like one.
Although it does get pretty mad
when you don't use your turn signal.
There are two options for the go pedal,
standard and one pedal.
Standard enacts pretty much like an automatic transmission
in an SUV.
Let off the gas, it doesn't immediately slow down
and you have to hit the brakes to stop.
I think it kind of sucks.
It has really aggressive creep
that makes it kind of hard to stop smoothly.
That was pretty good though.
And you have to hold the brake
cause well, it doesn't have brake hold.
I suspect most people will just settle on one pedal mode.
If you've never driven an EV before
it will take a day or so to get used to
but it is really worth it.
It makes it so that when you get off the gas,
it uses regenerative braking to slow you down
instead of you having to hit the brake pedal.
It can increase your range, allows me to drive smoother
and it also allows you to have more fun.
In a corner you can, just with your right foot
change the balance from the front to the rear
and really kind of feel what the car is doing.
Or if you're me, it makes it way easier to be an idiot.
Unfortunately, there is no way to disable traction control.
Although like I get it,
you could definitely just do a comically large skid
straight into a rollover if they allowed you to disable it.
But I really did not expect to have this much fun
in a crossover SUV that's not even advertised as sporty.
If you really want to get into it,
you can kind of see-saw your way through corners.
Going from understeer from overloaded front tires
to, you know, you punch it and then you get understeer
from not enough weight on the front tires.
It is without a doubt, slower than the Model Y in corners,
but I'm leaving the end of the corner
with a big grin on my face
instead of just cursing the electronics (groans)
(energetic rock music)
Oh Jesus, it that guy (car engine roars)
Sounds so good though.
- Our freshly minted Volvo fan boy over there,
he's glassing over quite a few things.
Give me the keys.
(soft music)
Like see this here, you think it's some nice felt
or soft material but it's just floor liner.
You know the stuff they use to line floors.
And for how well thought out the interior is,
there are some comical oversights.
I mean look, there is loads of storage space.
We've got a laptop holder, a tissue holder,
trash bin, cable holder, phone charger, purse hook
but where do I put my sunglasses?
They're the one thing
I wanna have safe dedicated storage for.
Not to mention the fancy Harman Kardon sound system.
Seems like it was tuned by a horny teenager
that just discovered bass.
(bass thumping beat)
Even after turning the subwoofer to its absolute minimum,
it's still a bit much for my taste.
Once you start driving (groans)
this thing hauls ass for something that size.
Mind you, the steering is not quite up to the same level.
Although this is far from the worst
electric steering setup that I've ever felt,
it's got this terrible self-centering
that dominates the first one eighth of return or so.
Like look, turning, turning, let go
and it goes straight immediately.
It's almost like the car has 12 degrees
of castor or something.
Past a certain point the self-centering
kind of starts to chill out.
So, determining whether it's understeer
or just the weird tuning, is kind of difficult.
It's just not confidence inspiring.
In fairness though, I highly doubt the average EX40 driver
is gonna to be too concerned about the subpar handling
even if it makes dodging potholes
or going around a left lane hog kind of sketchy.
What they might be concerned about is the ride quality,
which is a bit of a sore spot here.
Even after accounting for the winter tires,
you can tell the dampers in this car
were not designed for this much weight.
At low speeds the suspension is kind of busy
and at high speeds (groans) lets go,
they are just kind of floaty.
It feels like a truck with a towing package
but with nothing to tow.
Potholes or bumps in the road make the entire car
audibly shutter.
And when you punch it (groans)
you can see how hard she tilts.
Adjustable electronic dampers would have gone a long way
to help alleviate these problems
but those are typically reserved for cars
in a higher price bracket than this.
- So you hate it.
- Not exactly.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to like here.
The panoramic roof opens like a normal sunroof,
the on-wiper washer fluid is great
and you can even fit real human adults in the rear seats.
The trunk, which can be opened with a foot opens
and closes quickly revealing more than enough space
for a hockey bag or maybe even four.
And for trips to the grocery store, the floor folds up
to create a shelf for your bags.
The cargo cover can even be stored below it.
The XC40 honestly, could be a perfect car
for a lot of people just not for me.
(car engine roars)
- Realistically, for car enthusiasts like us,
the Polestar 2 is what we should be driving.
Review coming soon, by the way,
get subscribed it's gonna be sick.
The thing that will have you coming back
to the XC40 Recharge is the simplicity,
and a large portion of that is thanks to Google.
In here we have Android Automotive
different than Android Auto,
and it is easily the best infotainment currently in cars.
The past 10 years or so automakers have struggled
to figure out how to integrate your phone with the car
and here you just don't need the phone.
Hop onto the Play store, download the app that you want
and if bitty bop, you can run it
straight through the interface.
Like, look, there's Spotify.
Having instant access to my music and podcasts
through the infotainment screen has been awesome.
And Google Assistant makes things like requesting guidance
or texting super easy.
There are some notable emissions like Audible
and Apple Music aren't on it yet,
but this is very early days
and the number of apps is rapidly increasing.
In some parts of the world, they already have YouTube
and Netflix running on this screen.
Awesome, for one year stuck charging
and I can't wait for it to arrive here.
Overall, the system has been stable
and has a lot of nice features.
We've got the car settings can be changed
based off of which Google account you select
and accounts can be assigned to different keys.
It does have some annoyances,
like the buttons down here are just too small
and I regularly hit the wrong one on a bumpy road.
And I really wish there were physical controls
for the climate because this just sucks.
Like at least enables swiping if you're going to do this.
Come on Volvo and Google.
All in all though, it only took me about a day
to learn how all of this works,
and that's like a full week
before I would have learned at German car.
Now, how well over the air updates will pan out
is yet to be seen,
how long it takes some Android phones to get updates,
doesn't exactly inspire confidence
but Google has committed to monthly security updates
and there's a lot of potential.
With the likes of GM, Ford, Honda and Nissan
all signing up for Android Automotive
in the next couple of years,
it's hard to imagine this program getting relegated
to the cemetery.
There is one potential fatal flaw though,
without LTE the whole thing is basically useless.
The XC40 Recharge comes with Volvo's
Digital services package free for four years
although they currently won't tell you
how much it will cost to extend the functionality past that.
Even if you don't renew the internal LTE,
the Bluetooth makes it easy to tether your phone
and failing that the bones of the car are still great.
The driver assists are solid with adaptive cruise control
that's better than Teslas,
although not quite at the level of Audi.
The auto-lane centering is great
although without a physical button to toggle,
I ended up just leaving it disabled.
Also the 360 parking camera is...
Well, it's better than not having one,
but it is way to susceptible to rain and dirt.
Of course, you get all of the safety assists
and I haven't found them to be too intrusive
in everyday driving.
Like this is a Volvo, you expect it to be safe and it is.
The seat isn't just comfortable to sit in
but also very safe.
It has an anti-whiplash design that protects both male
and female occupants equally.
Something that a lot of automakers can't say
they only used an average male crash test dummy.
There even as an airbag at the side of the seats,
that deploys to protect a pregnant woman's tummy,
if you get T-boned.
Volvo's Equal Vehicles for all initiative
is seriously awesome.
Cause not only did they put in the research
to make sure their cars are equally safe for everyone,
but they also made over 100 research reports
freely available to other automakers for reference.
Honestly, this is the first electric car I've driven
where at the end I'm not excited
to go back to daily driving my Golf.
So, then should you buy it?
At $55,000, it's five grand less
than the Model Y Long Range,
but with a couple options it's very easy
to get them price comparable.
The XC40 Recharge has 356 kilometers of range,
150 less than the Model Y
and currently you don't get access
to Tesla's network of superchargers.
I've had less weirdness charging the Volvo than the Porsche,
but the superchargers alone could be reason enough
to give Musk your money.
Or the knowledge that your panels won't fall off,
might be reason enough to get the Volvo.
If your goal is to be wowed by tech
then Tesla or Mercedes might be a better options.
But if you want a no fuss commute
that well, it looks like this,
the XC40 Recharge may be the perfect choice.
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