► Volvo designs own rear motor
► Brings more power, greater range
► Electric SUV family first to benefit
The Volvo XC40 Recharge has received a similar set of upgrades to its electric drive systems as the closely related Volvo C40.
Which is to say the front-wheel drive versions of this electric SUV have been binned in favour of a new rear-wheel drive set-up – making them jointly the first RWD Volvos in 25 years – and there are efficiency improvements across the line-up, increasing driving range.
Time for big skids?
Well, maybe. But this is Volvo, and the change around is more to do with longer driving distances than sending your kids sliding across the back seats into the side windows.
If it’s a single-motor Volvo XC40 Recharge that fits your budget, you do get a little more power, though, as the new rear-wheel drive versions are good for 175kW (235bhp) compared with 170kW (228bhp) from the outgoing front-wheel drive models.
The new rear motor is also Volvo’s first in-house design, and together with refinements to the cooling for the 69kWh battery pack sees WLTP claimed driving range increase from 264 miles per charge to 286 miles. A useful enhancement.
The usual 10-80 per cent DC charging time benchmark is approximately 34 minutes, limited by the relatively weak 130kW charger.
Is there still an all-wheel drive Volvo XC40 Recharge?
The Volvo XC40 Recharge Twin Motor AWD does indeed still exist, and also benefits from the new rear motor design. These get an 183kW variant, which is combined with an also new 117kW asynchronous front motor and a larger 82kWh battery.
The result is the same 300kW (402bhp) in totalas the previous model – which used a matched pair of 150kW motors – but a claimed driving range improvement of 39 miles, the total figure increasing from 272 miles per charge to 311 miles.
Any other Volvo XC40 news?
The new alloy wheels reduce drag, which is… something.
And elsewhere in the world, a 185kW (245bhp) rear-wheel drive XC40 Recharge extended range is also offered – which gets the bigger 82kWh battery pack and a claimed driving distance of up to 320 miles between plugs. But we won’t be getting this in the UK.
According to chief operation officer and deputy chief executive, Javier Varela, Volvo remains on track to become a fully electric car maker by 2030.
‘Range and charging times are new key factors for more and more of our customers, and these improvements make our fully electric models even more attractive than they already were,’ he said.