At the station
Supplying the electric motors with sustenance is a 78-kWh lithium-ion high-voltage battery and 11 kW onboard charger. The battery will support DC fast-charging up to 150 kW; with that you can charge the battery from 10 to 80 percent in around 33 minutes at large-capacity stations (that bypass the onboard charger).
We had occasion to charge the vehicle at a 350-kW station (of which there are only two or three in all Quebec at present), and while it never reached that 150-kW capacity (it never got higher than 96 kW), it still charged very quickly in comparison with a Level 2. Now all we need is more of those mega-fast charging stations…
Most of the time, of course, owners will be charging their C40 at home, and according to Volvo a 220-volt Level 2 home charger will take about eight hours to charge an empty battery from to 100 percent in about eight hours.
Safety
The C40 has Volvo’s new Advanced Driver Assist System suite, which encompasses a small army of functions designed to make every occupant’s life safer. Among them are collision mitigation with braking and steering assistance at low and high speeds, and automatic braking in the case of an imminent collision.
The last word
Whether you like the looks of the C40 is a question of taste, but less debatable is the performance capability of this sportier sibling to the XC40 Recharge. Range is on par with most similar models on the market, handling is great and most of all, there’s so much power and pace delivered by the two electric motors and single-speed transmission that you don’t feel at all the heaviness of the vehicle.
There are hiccups like the imperfect multimedia interface and the cargo space in bac, which is massive, but overall, if you’re in the market for an upscale small EV (price is just over $72,000, FYI), you can do worse than the C40 Recharge. If on the other hand, you’re asking yourself why you should pay $20,000 more for this than for a perfectly good – nay, great – Ioniq 5 or Kia EV6, well, that’s a legitimate question.
We like
Lots o’ power
Comfortable, upscale interior
Decent range and quick charging capacity
We like less
Still a frustrating multimedia experience (and the screen is almost small by today’s standards)
Exterior looks a bit quirky
Rear visibility
The competition
Genesis GV60
Volvo XC40 Recharge
Polestar 1
Tesla Model Y
