First Impressions of C40 Recharge, Volvo’s latest electric SUV

On the road pricing for around $82,000
Firm handling, little body roll
A big frunk
Basic specifications for the Volvo XC40:

Volvo C40. Source: Volvo

Volvo has launched the fully electric C40 Recharge medium SUV to the Australian market … with rather less fanfare than we are used to when it comes to new entrants to our EV model starved market.

Volvo has followed up that low-key release by flying groups of motoring writers from around Australia to Adelaide for reveal sessions and test drives. I was fortunate enough to score an invite to one of these sessions, getting to sample both the 2WD and 4WD variants over a variety of conditions through the Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley.

As I will be getting a longer loan of one in a few weeks’ time, this article is essentially a ‘first impressions’ report. I’ll write up a longer version following my extended drive.

By the way, if the C40 Recharge seems very similar in many aspects to the Volvo CX40 Recharge: that is no accident. The C40 Recharge is basically a restyled XC40 Recharge with a more ‘swoopy’ rear roofline, giving it a less boxy (less Volvo-like??) appearance.

Otherwise, the C40 has essentially the same interior, basic dimensions and performance statistics as the CX40 Recharge – although Volvo has differentiated the two by offering the C40 Recharge as AWD or 4WD with different battery options – making direct pricing comparisons difficult.

On the road pricing for around $82,000

On paper, the C40 Recharge initially slightly cheaper – in Victoria, on the road pricing starts at around $82,000 on the road for a C40, in comparison to $84,000 for the CX40 Recharge.

However, a direct price comparison with the XC40 Recharge is difficult as the offerings are subtly different. The C40 comes as either a two-wheel drive (2WD) with 69kWh battery or all-wheel drive (AWD) with 78kWh battery whilst the XC40 comes only as a 2WD with 78kWh battery.

The XC40 also comes in electric (‘Recharge’), Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV) and petrol forms, whilst the C40 is available only as a full-electric. Making it harder again, the 2WD C40 also has a comparable WLTP driving range to the bigger battery AWD version – ah, the vagaries of test cycles! I’ll report back on my real-world driving range experience once I’ve done the extended drive test.

Anyway, I shouldn’t complain too loudly about the complications of EV choices – it’s nice to actually have the problem! (Only three years ago we had a mere eight or nine full battery EVs to choose from – now we have 33).

Volvo C40. Supplied.

So, back to what is it like to drive? On arrival, Volvo very kindly pre-set the sat-nav with a route that included a set of varied road conditions over a 175km, 2.5 to 3hr drive.

This gave us a reasonable selection of driving speeds, conditions and road types to experience. Starting with a route out of the city in suburban traffic and out to a windy uphill drive, we passed through Uraidla and Birdwood to our lunch destination in the Barossa Valley.

Given the hilly roads were often potholed due to the ongoing rains – it seemed a good opportunity to test the ride and handling on a few of the less nasty looking ones.

The C40 however took them in its stride with no skittishness and little harshness. The lack of harshness in particular was surprising, given the AWD is fitted with 20 inch wheels and very low profile tyres – meaning there is little sidewall height to soak up bumps.

Firm handling, little body roll

Also, for a 2000 plus kilogram car, the handling is definitely on the firmer side with little body roll. Combined with supportive but relative hard seats, you would expect this to result in passengers having a sense of being jiggled around.

However, for the sections where I was in the passenger seat, this did not seem to be a problem.

As the drive day also started out quite wet, it gave me a few opportunities to try out the Volvo’s safety features: however my couple of gentle attempts to confuse traction control (something that is easily done in my Kona electric) by accelerating on wet bitumen or around off-camber roundabouts were met by stony silence from the tyres and a stubborn refusal to do anything but stick to the chosen direction.

Steering feel was selectable between ‘firm’ and ‘normal’. Interestingly, the AWD firm steering setting was noticeably firmer than in the 2WD. This may be just the sort of difference you find between any two cars, or it might be an inherent difference between the models – something I will have to investigate further in my extended drive.

After getting used to the firm setting, I found the normal one to be a bit vague in comparison. Perhaps good for a long drive on a highway between Melbourne and Canberra, but the firm setting was my preference for a narrower, winding road.

My return journey was done in a 2WD version and involved a 110km/h run back down the freeway back to the airport. It was here I tried the ‘normal’ steering setting again – but found it to be too light. (Plus, to my confusion, the ‘firm’ setting felt equivalent to the ‘normal’ one in the AWD!)

As for the rest: sound deadening is definitely something that EVs are good at showing up if it is insufficient, but the C40 was very quiet in all conditions. The back seat appeared to have lots of space – but as I forgot to sit there for any part of the drive, I can’t give much more feedback on that area for now.

A big frunk

Another nice feature in the C40 Recharge (as well in the CX40 Recharge) is it comes with 31 litres of under bonnet storage in a fully sealed ‘froot’ (or ‘front boot’: ‘frunk’ in American jargon).

With a carpeted floor and sealed with a clip-down lid, it would make a clean, dry and readily accessible spot to store the usual EV set of leads and adaptors rather that under the boot floor.

The boot volume at 413 litres (seats up and filled to the level of the seat tops) is the same as the XC40 Recharge, however the ‘filled to the roof’ volume is smaller compared to the XC 40 due to the more swoopy rear roof-line of the C40.

So, to put my ‘first impressions’ in a nutshell: it seemed pretty good and there was nothing in my initial test drive that would put me off one.

Given my current metric for whether I could own a particular car is to ask “would I be prepared to drive it to Perth and back?” (as I recently did in my Kona) – the answer is “probably yes.”

However, I’ll get back to more fully answering that (and other) questions once I cover a few more kms on familiar roads in one.