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A closer look at the XC40 Recharge, Volvo’s first electric car

The XC40 Recharge won’t blow people away or engender rapturous headlines like the Tesla Model 3 or the Porsche Taycan, but it may actually have more to say

Volvo has a reputation for building the safest cars on the road. Now, it wants to be known for producing the least amount of pollution, too.

On October 16th, the China-owned / Sweden-based automaker unveiled its first fully electric car, the XC40 Recharge. Everything about the reveal event was understated: the stage was small, the SUV was compact, and the backdrop was a pink so soft you could almost call it rose. Sure, there was a little dry ice and some EDM when the car was revealed, but Volvo was less concerned with the mise-en-scène and more concerned with the message.

Volvo was less concerned with the mise en scène, and more concerned with the message

But there was still a car to consider. The XC40 Recharge won’t blow people away or engender rapturous headlines in the same way as the Tesla Model 3 or the Porsche Taycan. The least you can say about it is that it looks almost exactly like the gas-powered XC40, just without a front grille and a tailpipe.

The real differences, of course, are just beneath the surface. The battery pack, stuffed into the floor of the vehicle, is encased in a neon orange aluminum case that Volvo is calling “a safety cage.” Embedded in the middle of the car’s body, the safety cage creates a built-in crumple zone around the battery. Leave it to Volvo to put as much thought into keeping passengers safe as it does its drivetrain.

Interestingly enough, the battery almost ended up being much weaker, with fewer cells and less capacity, than what was eventually decided upon. According to Henrik Green, Volvo’s chief technology officer, the company’s engineers were halfway through the XC40 Recharge’s development cycle when something big happened in the EV space that threw them for a loop: the unveiling of the Model 3.

When Volvo learned that the Model 3 would have a range of over 300 miles, the company’s engineers set to work to do what they could to increase their own range by upgrading the vehicle’s battery. “We decided to go for a bigger size than we originally thought,” Green said.

“That was not a fun decision.”

That meant contacting the automaker’s battery suppliers, South Korea’s LG Chem and CTAL in China, to add modules to its battery to improve the performance. If customers wanted electric cars with bigger batteries and longer ranges, then Volvo would have to deliver, he said. “That was not a fun decision,” Green added, “being adamant about quality and everything about producing vehicles, doing that very late in the program was super critical.”

Here’s where things ended up: the car’s powertrain offers a range of over 400 kilometers on a single charge based on Europe’s WLTP standard, or 200-plus miles in the US, though the automaker has yet to obtain an official EPA rating. It will have an output of 408 horsepower (or 402 hp in the US), and the battery charges to 80 percent of its capacity in 40 minutes on a fast-charger system.

Another crucial decision was the one to work hand-in-glove with Google to embed the tech giant’s Android Automotive software in the car. That meant replacing Volvo’s own operating system with Google’s — something that most other car companies have been hesitant to do. Green said one of the motivating factors was making a car with one of the best voice assistants on the market today. “Honestly speech functions in cars typically suck today,” he said. “It’s really not a nice experience.”

“Honestly speech functions in cars typically suck today.”

Green predicts that other OEMs will follow suit once they realize that the voice assistants they are trying to develop fall short of the standard set by Google, Amazon, and others working in this space.

“I just came to the conclusion that there is no chance on earth that a car company, with the volume we have, with the power we have, would compete on probably one of the biggest battles going on in tech today,” he said. “Why should the car industry be there, up against the Amazons and the Googles and the Apples, on who’s going to build the best assistant in the world? It’s crazy.”

It wasn’t an obvious choice: Volvo is a luxury marque, and Android is closely associated with mass-market phones. Still, Green calls the collaboration between the two companies “the perfect match.”

It’s not an obvious choice maybe, but it certainly has obvious advantages. The native Android Auto infotainment system means the XC40 Recharge can receive over-the-air software updates. So while the car’s driver-assist system isn’t nearly as advanced as Tesla’s Autopilot or GM’s Super Cruise, it can get better once Volvo develops the right software. And then it can simply push out an update to its entire fleet.

The XC40 isn’t the first vehicle in Volvo’s lineup to get the embedded Android Auto operating system; that would be the Polestar 2 from the automaker’s performance sub-brand. The XC40 bears a lot of similarities to the Polestar 2. Both cars are slated to go on sale in 2020, but the XC40 Recharge is less expensive and higher volume than Polestar, so it will obviously reach more customers.

The XC40 is just the first in what will eventually be an entire lineup of electric cars. And Volvo is taking a more holistic view by promising to reduce its own carbon footprint by 40 percent by 2025. The company has big goals, and it all starts with this compact SUV. It’s a modest start to a very transformative endeavor.

Volvo Cars CEO Håkan Samuelsson poses next to the “frunk,” or front trunk.
Volvo Cars CEO Håkan Samuelsson poses next to the “frunk,” or front trunk.
Volvo CTO Henrik Green explains the XC40 Recharge’s native Android infotainment system.
Volvo CTO Henrik Green explains the XC40 Recharge’s native Android infotainment system.

Photography by Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge