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's not just fast with an infotainment designed by
google and a commitment to no nonsense unlike other evs this thing's really
nice to live with just like it's nice to live with our sponsor cablemod cablemod allows you to
personalize the look of your pc with custom colored sleeved cables try with
their configurator and build your cables exactly how you want them with a
realistic cable preview check it out at the link below
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 gilly 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 grilled elite 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 uh
yeah not exactly there's space for a charging cable and not much more but
there's a very volatile 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 furs
the interior is simple it feels nice although not over the top luxurious if
you have 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
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 0 to 60 which is the same as the model y and other publications have
measured 4.2 seconds 0 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 computers 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 it acts pretty much like an automatic
transmission in an suv you 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 kinda hard to stop smoothly
that was pretty good though and you have to hold the brake because 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 cease all your way through
corners you know 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 and corners but i'm leaving the end of
the corner with a big grin on my face instead of just cursing the electronics
oh jeez it's that guy
sounds so good though
our freshly minted volvo fanboy over there he's glossing over quite a few
things give me the keys
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 want to have safe dedicated storage for not to mention the
fancy harman garden sound system seems like it was tuned by a horny teenager
that just discovered bass
even after turning the subwoofer to its absolute minimum it's still a bit much
for my taste once you start driving
this thing hauls ass for something this size mind you the steering is not quite
up to the same level although this is far from the worst electric steering setup i've ever felt it's got this
terrible self-centering that dominates the first 1 8 of a turn or so like look
turning turning let go and it goes straight immediately it's almost like
the car has 12 degrees of caster 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 xc40 driver is going 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
oh let's go ah they're just kind of floaty it feels
like a truck with the towing package but with nothing to tow
potholes or bumps in the road make the entire car
audibly shutter and when you punch it
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 it's just not for me
realistically for car enthusiasts like us the pole star 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 incurs 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 bippity bop you can run it straight through the interface like look
there's spotify having instant access to my music and
podcast through the infotainment screen has been awesome and google assistant
makes things like requesting guidance or texting super easy
there are some notable omissions 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 you're 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 look at the
car's 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 are physical controls for the
climate because this just sucks like at least enable swiping if you're gonna 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 a 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 tesla's 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 too 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 if they only used an average male crash test dummy there even is an airbag
at the side of the seat that deploys to protect a pregnant woman's tummy if you
get t-boned volvo's equal vehicles for all initiative is seriously awesome
because 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 but 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 5 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 better
options but if you want a no-fuss commute that well it looks like this the
xc40 recharge may be the perfect choice
but not as perfect as my segways to our sponsor squarespace thanks to
squarespace for sponsoring today's video you think you don't need a website of
course you do you can make anything you want and it's super easy to make a
website that can do almost anything on squarespace they have award-winning
templates that will help you make your website stand out instead of looking
like it's from the 90s and if you're looking to open a business online
selling products they have you covered too squarespace can help you showcase what
you're selling in a modern style they have inventory management no limit on
how many items you want to sell and we even use squarespace
both our Linus media group and ltx expo websites were built quickly using
squarespace if you ever get stuck making website they have 24-hour support and a
team ready to help you out head to squarespace.com LTT to get 10 off today
huge thanks for watching hit like get subscribed and let us know in the
comments what we can do to make these car videos better we're still really new to them and
this one was what like tenth of the budget and a third of the
team we need to make money on these if we want to do more let us know how well we
did