Volvo presents the C40 Recharge

New cars from Sweden are (almost) always interesting. Because the innovations don't come that often. Today Volvo introduces the C40 Recharge. A fully electric SUV Coupe that, depending on the reading, is an XC40 Recharge with a different roof or the compatible model to the Polestar 2. The fact is: all vehicles share the same technology and platform.

Volvo presents the C40 Recharge
Volvo presents the C40 Recharge

Volvo C40 Recharge

The new C40 Recharge is the second all-electric vehicle from Volvo. There will be no hybrid or combustion engine. It is produced in the Ghent plant, parallel to the XC40 Recharge. When it comes to design, Volvo is taking no chances and is following the general trend. Several manufacturers are cooking up similar crossover concepts, whoever expected typical Volvo cars today may be disappointed.

The drive is provided by two permanent magnet electric motors on the front and rear axles, which develop a system output of 300 kW (408 hp) and 660 Nm of torque. The energy required for this is provided by a 78 kWh battery pack, which can be charged to 40 percent within 80 minutes at charging points with the appropriate infrastructure.

The expected range is around 420 kilometers (WLTP). According to Volvo, it can probably be further improved over time with software updates.

The Volvo C40 Recharge represents the future of Volvo and shows where we are going says Henrik Green, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Volvo Cars. It is fully electric and is only available online at attractive all-inclusive conditions and with short delivery times. Driving a new Volvo has never been more attractive.

The C40 Recharge will only be available online. Volvo wants to drastically reduce the number of possible variants, an exciting matter. Because where, that is the question, will you differ from Lynk & Co in the future? The Volvo Geely subsidiary relies on the same technology package, packages it differently and also sells it online.

Production of the C40 will start in the fall, Google will always be on board and the updates will come online. Until then, Volvo will also communicate the prices and the much more important monthly flat rate.

17 thoughts on "Volvo presents the C40 Recharge"

  • @StF

    In a nutshell, that's how it is!

  • @Volvaab Driver

    But the manufacturers themselves are to blame for this. Does anyone remember the goal of 1 million electric cars by 2020? Dated around 2010, or even earlier. So it had been clear for a long time in which general direction it should go.
    And if you had done the government a favor and played along, then the learning curve would have started earlier, you could have simmered the topic on a low flame and probably had more influence on the implementation.
    But the price was just too high for the manufacturers, although viewed in the light it was probably okay for all the accompanying measures taken by the government (in retrospect one is admittedly always smarter).
    Probably would have even worked if you hadn't been so stupid as to give the opponents with the diesel scandal the club they are now using to beat you up.

    As a motorist you can of course ask yourself whether you have to suffer from such power games? The answer to this then depends on how you assess climate change and how it affects you.
    I don't mean to say that our government is fighting climate change with all its might, but it has at least noticed it.
    The potential for quieter change was certainly there, but apparently they didn't want to. And so we are in the here and now.

  • Thank you Tom,

    that's exactly how it is - the learning curve is only now beginning. The decision that the path is the right one and that there is no alternative has long since been made.

  • @ StF (bycatch),

    sounds nice, as if the service is free for people and the environment. I'm afraid that's not how it is ... and recovery when braking is not that easy.

    The C40 doesn't have its disc brakes (thermal destruction of kinetic energy) out of jokes either.

    As far as I know, the state of EV and storage today is that braking energy is only used very expensively and only partially. The systems already suffer from regular fast charging and react with a shortened service life.

    The current peak of an emergency braking converted exclusively into electrical energy would be a multiple of what the systems are anyway more bad than right
    cope with.

    The same goes for rapid discharge. Electric cars only feel really comfortable when they are traveling at a constant 20 km / h at 70 °. Higher speeds or even (intermediate) sprints and overtaking maneuvers not only reduce the range, but also the service life of the ecologically and economically controversial batteries. It is said that the negative effect on the battery corresponds to several quick charges.

    For this reason, manufacturers are already or in the future relying on buffers for recovery (braking). Anyone who ever thought that building a sustainable and ecologically beneficial EV was child's play, has long been deceived and taught a better one.

    Things are getting more and more complex (and heavier). With today's level of development, developers and engineers have been talking about “conventional EV” for a long time. I would not have thought it possible that a “future technology” could devalue itself linguistically so quickly. It was only 2 years ago that we spoke of “conventional combustion engines” ...

    • @Volvaab Driver - You will have to learn a lot when it comes to e-cars. For example the term "Vampire consumption”I didn't know about it before, but it's very interesting.

  • A note on the power of e-mobiles: The 300 kW power is actually just a by-catch, as the electric drive is designed for high energy recovery. As a brake, it can presumably even convert 400 kW of mechanical power into electrical energy.

    And once the drivetrain has this performance, the marketing obviously sees it as potentially sales-promoting if the vehicle also offers high performance, at least on paper.
    It's fun, but it bites with the range.
    That is why there is definitely an Eco button or a corresponding submenu that throttles the available power to more civilian values ​​and can bring reaching the specified range with cautious driving within the scope of the possible.

  • @ Hans S.,

    a BioPower sticker should also be attached to the rollator ...
    If not everything that moves without electricity or fossil fuels, where does it come from?

    When I think about it, I do one on my racing bike and later on the walker. And when I overtake a roommate in the EV (battery-powered wheelchair) in the hallway, then I celebrate a great victory for the environment - with a powerful fart.

    Hopefully you can allow yourself that much methane if you are still climate-friendly in your old people's home.

  • @Volvaab Driver, 2040….., well written!
    You may then go to Sweden, I will probably spend my 2040, if at all, in a retirement home, make halls and corridors unsafe there with my rollator and most visitors will be amazed at my “I love Saab” sticker on the rollator!

  • Vision 2040

    The bridge over the Øresund is closed to EVs. As elsewhere and across Europe, all bridges and tunnels over 5 km in length. Too many EVs left with dead batteries, creating unprecedented and dangerous chaos.

    I take it easy, have always preferred ferry connections and roll off board in Trelleborg with around 300 other EVs than No. 127.

    In order to prevent broken EVs, chaos in Trelleborg and on the further highways, no EV with a charge status of less than 50% may leave the ferry terminal, not enter S. This is new to me and catches me cold.

    We are all below 50% after the trip to the ferry. Without exception. After all, there are 20 charging stations available on the terminal and it won't take too long, at least I think ...

    But it turns out that cars below 50% are only allowed to continue their journey when they have reached 80%. Worse still, environmentally conscious Swedes have banned fast-charging processes because they reduce battery life and are an unnecessary waste of resources and pollution, as well as promoting child labor.

    After 36 hours I finally travel to S with 81% charged batteries and am a lot poorer but also smarter. There is the 45 SEK per kWh that is charged at the terminal, but also a brochure on my lap. She explains to me how I can and should move my EV responsibly and that it would then work safely, cheaply and quickly with the next entry.

    It's just stupid that I would then have to plan 36 hours (including loading times) to get to the ferry in Germany. But hey, fast charging methods are still common in D. Greta really likes them
    not, but I decide to take advantage of it. The next journey to the holiday home will be at least one day shorter. After all, I never wanted the EV and by 2040 I won't have to wear every shoe anymore.

    "How dare you?" is the title of the brochure that was given to me in Trelleborg and that ends up in the fireplace of the holiday home a day and a half late - with the utmost confidence that the publisher and Environment Minister (G..T.) will have produced it pollutant-free and CO2-neutral.

    And while I look into the flames, I think of the Sweden vacation in 2019. With a Saab. With a BioPower. With E85 in the tank. I catch myself with the phrase that everything used to be better, somehow easier, more honest, clearer, I feel infinitely old, no longer of this world, go to sleep and look forward to the walk the next morning ...

    Feet are still feet and gravel is gravel. Pine trees still smell like 2019 and hopefully the beach is still a beach. I'll see one morning 2040.

  • @Francis
    With an unladen weight of 2,2 tons, the inclined EV pilot needs this power for the city. Otherwise every better motorized, half as heavy turbo-burner will drive away That would gnaw massively at the ego 😉
    If the flat rate has expired, the hazardous waste is collected, out of sight, out of mind ...

  • "It has never been more attractive to drive a new Volvo."
    I am worried about the future of electrified mobility.

  • Thanks for reporting. But…

    Phew, that thing is just awful. Fortunately, Volvo still has nice station wagons. It seems that at Volvo they are chasing the zeitgeist at all costs and their own style is being forgotten. Is that what China (Geely) wanted? Or do you forget your roots in Gothenburg?

    And seriously, who needs 400 horsepower? Is that the turnaround in mobility? I can not believe it.

  • It's just horrible what's rolling towards us. In the meantime, even scientists have despaired of this (economic) policy and have no understanding of it. It is now undisputed that this path to the dead end will in no way help the planet, the opposite is the case.

    I recently passed a Tesla that was being charged quickly at a charging station. The column was almost glowing, the cooling was running at full speed. Which power grid in our desolate infrastructure should be able to cope with that? The blackouts are preprogrammed. Of course, this does not flow into the total energy consumption of a nicely calculated EV! The calculation is only after the socket - ZERO emissions ... hahaha

    Our self-sufficient SAAB are becoming more valuable every day 😉

  • 400 HP, you absolutely need ... .. In my eyes the completely wrong way. But the madness is that such vehicles are still subsidized.

    There is no (little) money for the florist, the bookseller and for the small neighborhood bike shop around the corner, but for these mobile smartphones you can draw on plenty. Whoever wants to understand that, I am not one of them!

  • PS

    An output of over 400 hp for a relatively small city car? That makes it worse rather than better in my eyes ...

    King of traffic light sprint. Quite strange priorities considering the future and the salvation of this world. Neither outside nor inside deserves a future so much egoism and so little utility. Shame, shame, shame, shame… shame on you.

    I never could have imagined that Sweden and Volvo would ever take this route. I have a Gothenburg resident who is over 50 years old and has a range of over 500 km - be it summer or winter - and who could smoke the tires in the city whenever he wanted.

    The thing only has 160 hp. How much do we need tomorrow when today's city car has 400? ? ?

  • In addition to Volvo EVs (already more often), the Opel E-Mocca (unique) was also a topic here.

    The latter was the hook for the subsidy policy and absurdly cheap leasing options and consequently also for questioning the sustainability of such models as a whole.

    That was a very good article that made me think and did my own research. I came across a range calculator with involuntary comedy that Opel had put on the Internet voluntarily and by itself. I arrived at the same assessment that I thought I heard between the lines.

    It was (at least that's how I perceived it) something like this: "Attention, attention, this is where tomorrow's electronic waste comes with no useful, residual or resale value ..."

    The Opel had a 50 kW / h battery and should be good for more than 300 km of range. That fits in wonderfully with the information about the Volvo, its slightly larger capacity and range.

    Opel's range calculator from involuntary comedy would then probably also come to very similar results or results adapted to the battery capacity for this Volvo. With the Opel, at 0 ° C and the moderate recommended speed of 130 km / h, the range was only 147 km.
    Even this Volvo, be it from Sweden or not, is probably a dead bullet and offers little that would raise it above the status of the electronic waste of tomorrow with any probability.

    Without any prior training, I could certainly understand today's article as if Volvo was on a promising path and that this new introduction was an acceptable success. That irritates me a little, especially since I don't see any significant progress compared to the E-Mocca. For me, such electric city SUVs are simply rubbish - build them whoever wants...

  • I found today's Volvo excursion exciting, and I'm happy to repeat it. The C40 is now not soooo the big hit. Not ugly, but not a big hit either. Volvo was able to do that better in earlier times. But that's just my subjective impression.

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