Long-Term Test Wrap-Up: 2021 Volvo XC40 Recharge

Article content

“If you had a gas pump in your driveway at home, would you top up your vehicle every night?”

Article content

It was a rhetorical question a guest on my Plugged In podcast made a few weeks ago, and as I wrapped up my long-term test of the Volvo XC40 Recharge, I couldn’t help but think about it. As I noted in my initial long-term test story, what I looked forward to about having an electric vehicle for more than the week auto journalists typically get with a press vehicle, sometimes less, was that it would allow me to really get a sense of how often it really needed charging. The answer was: not often at all.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Long-Term Test Wrap-Up: 2021 Volvo XC40 Recharge Back to video

Just as that above question seems somewhat absurd — you wouldn’t fill up your tank every night, even if it was just a quarter full — I came to the realization that my habit of plugging in an EV every night so that it would be fully charged by morning was totally unnecessary unless it was running on the electric equivalent of fumes. And that was somewhat liberating.

Article content

As noted in my long-term test introduction , the full-charge range of the XC40 Recharge is around the 335 kilometre mark, and as my month-long test drive coincided with Dr. Bonnie Henry’s travel restrictions, apart from a couple of short highway runs, the majority of the near 700 km I put on the crossover was done in and around Metro Vancouver. That wasn’t ideal to test out the long-range experience of the EV, but it did mean that I only had to plug it in a couple of times during my four-week test. That in itself was a bit of a revelation, and underscores the fact that the only time range anxiety rears its scalp-crawling head in most every 2021 EV is during a long haul.

Article content

The cost of operation was also enlightening. Granted, B.C.’s cost of clean electricity is among the cheapest in the country, but using a calculation based on $1.50/litre gas — it was actually slightly higher than that across Metro during my time with the vehicle — a gas-powered 2021 Volvo XC40 would have cost five times as much to cover the same distance I did in the Recharge. Extrapolate that over the life of the vehicle, or even five years, and the price differential between the electric model ($71,200 as tested) and a similarly outfitted internal combustion engine model ($61,840) doesn’t seem so prohibitive. That case is made even stronger when you consider that EVs have much less maintenance requirements on brakes, transmissions, etc. over their lifespan than comparable gas-powered vehicles.

Article content

And in terms of performance, the XC40 Recharge leaves its ICE stablemate in the proverbial dust: 402 horsepower vs. 248, and 486 lb-ft of torque vs. 258. The electric model even out-tows the gas version, 2,000 lb to 1,600.

Another big takeaway from my time with the XC40 Recharge was the simplicity-of-use and effectiveness of the so-called Driver Support systems, notably the adaptive cruise control and the Pilot Assist. Of course, many new vehicles have similar systems — the former designed to help you maintain a constant speed, combined with a preset time interval to the vehicle ahead of you, and the latter to help you keep the vehicle in the current traffic lane and maintain an even speed and at a set time interval to the vehicle ahead — but when working in concert with an electric powertrain, there is something magical about the smooth ride and seamless accelerating and decelerating depending on the traffic flow.

Article content

FOR IN-DEPTH EV NEWS & ANALYSIS TUNE IN TO OUR PLUGGED-IN PODCAST

I activated both during an early morning weekday drive from my home in North Vancouver along Highway 1 to Langley for a game of golf — a trip of about 50 kilometres — and it was quite interesting to experience how the two systems worked together. The result was that despite traffic ranging from free flowing to outright stopped, it was a pretty relaxing commute to the course. Full autonomous driving may still be years off, but this level of driver assistance — somewhere between 2 and 3 on the scale — works well in most driving conditions, and in an electric vehicle like the XC40 Recharge demonstrates why EVs are the vehicles of choice for such systems.

Which brings me to the conclusion of my long-term test of the 2021 Volvo XC40 Recharge. The arrival of the Swedish automaker’s first-ever electric vehicle couldn’t have come at a better time, as the current styling and design of Volvos , across the model stable, is at an all-time high. The exterior language — from the so-called Thor’s Hammer front lights to the neatly sculpted rear ends — is by far the best the company has ever had, making those boxy designs of previous decades seem almost a century old now. And the interiors — from the best-in-the-business seats to the Swedish minimalism cabins, and from the de-cluttered dashboard to the intuitive and non-intrusive vertical centre display — put Volvos head and shoulder above the German and Japanese luxury brands they have always aspired to emulate.

Volvo made headlines a couple of years ago by committing to having every new vehicle it produced equipped with an electric motor, and the XC40 Recharge is the first of many pure EVs the company will design and unveil in the coming years. For a first time effort, it is a stunning city car with style, grace and some impressive grunt.