• President and CEO of the brand.Hakan Samuelsson, architect of the conversion of Volvo into a global brand, Protagonista del Motor
  • Industria.Volvo and Geely will make hybrid and gasoline engines together
  • Models.Volvo advances some notes on the safety of its new XC40, its first fully electric car

A new era of electrification has begun for the Volvo brand, which presented in Milan, without dynamic testing, the XC40 Recharge P8, its first 100% Volvo electric car. The XC40 Recharge P8 is the battery-powered version of the smallest SUV in its SUV range and winner of the prestigious Car of the Year award.

It will have more than 400 km of autonomy (WLTP), two engines one for each axle that will give it a power of 408 horses and permanent all-wheel drive. Its 78 kWh battery will recharge up to 80% in 40 minutes with fast recharging, although it can also be recharged in an 11 kW wall charger . It is mounted on the CMA platform developed jointly with its owner Geely .

Updates of their systems - software and infotainment - can be made from the cloud, something that will also be a pioneer in the brand and one of the first cars in the world in which it is possible to do so. This is because its system is developed in conjunction with Android, so it offers options such as voice assistant, Google Maps navigation and the PlayStore store. Of course, your connectivity can also be done with Apple CarPlay, even if the internal system is Android.

Another distinguishing feature is that when the combustion engine is not available, it includes a small 31-liter trunk under the hood in the front compartment . Logically, it does not have exhaust pipes and since it does not need refrigeration, the front grill has been redesigned. In contrast, the structure that supports the battery and its position under the floor, gives it a lower center of gravity, which will positively influence its dynamics . It will also give it greater rigidity, which will also result in greater security.

Arrival order

During that presentation, brand managers said that international sales began four days ago and that since then they already have more than 1,000 preorders confirmed. But in our country the XC40 Recharge P8 will not arrive until January 2021, starting its sales in our country from September of this year.

The prices are still to be defined at international level, although those of the combustion versions are around in Spain between 33,800 and 50,900 euros . Information published in the US gives a price there of $ 48,000, about 43,000 euros. Although it is a purely indicative price, it is home to the price increase of approximately 10,000 euros suffered by any thermal model, due to the price of the battery.

During this static presentation in Milan we also learned that the plug- in hybrid version of the same compact SUV, which is already on sale in our country , will begin to be delivered in March of this year.

This electric XC40 will be manufactured in Ghent and will be the first of the five 100% battery-powered models that Volvo will present, one per year, by 2025 . All, together with their 'brothers' plug-in hybrids, will be under the name Recharge that will differentiate them from the range of combustion models. And, the goal set by Hakan Samuelsson , executive director of the brand globally, is that by 2025, 50% of its global sales will be recharge, that is, electrified vehicles.

"For Volvo, the future is electric" he has repeated countless times and that is why his goal is that by 2020, 20% of its sales will correspond to plug- in vehicles. The brand already has one of them for each model of its range and although a fifth of its sales seems an ambitious goal, it is an achievement already obtained by Volvo in the last quarter of 2019 at European level .

However, it will triple its production to reduce delivery times and to encourage buyers to use the electric mode, all plug-in models will include free electricity for one year, whose consumption will be measured with their mobile application and subsequently reimbursed by the brand . "We are transforming our company with concrete actions, not with promises," said Samuelsson.

Volvo intends that its operations have no impact on the climate by 2040. And its first step is to reduce by 40% its carbon footprint per vehicle throughout its useful life between 2018 and 2025, something that would be fulfilled if they achieve that half of your sales are recharge by 2025.

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