Slippery slope
Volvo making a coupefied crossover was surely inevitable. What’s possibly less inevitable is the fact that the supremely logically named C40 – it’s an XC40 with some of the ruggedness grated off – is purely electric. It helps hammer home the fact half of the Scandi firm’s sales will be EVs by 2025, but Volvo’s surely wilfully sacrificing sales in the meantime by not simply transplanting the XC40’s internal combustion options into its more svelte sibling.
Not least because the numbers it launches with are punchy for a compact SUV. Namely a 402bhp peak and a £57k price, punting it firmly into the territory occupied by some big-hitting and already well established EVs.
A 78kWh lithium-ion battery feeds two electric motors – 201bhp apiece, with one on each axle – for a range of 276 miles, while 0–62mph takes 4.7secs and the top speed, as per all brand new Volvos, is limited to 112mph. Less powerful C40s driving just their front axle will follow and will likely be a more pragmatic choice. Not least for the money you’ll save.
For now, power is permanently split 50/50 front and rear, with no drive mode switch to toggle up to a sportier mode. In fact, the whole experience is built around ‘simplicity’, which is apparently what sets it apart from the curiously-similar-on-paper Polestar 2.
Get going and the C40 behaves just like you’d expect a 2.1-tonne EV with 400-odd horsepower to. Which is to say needlessly quick in a straight line then relatively unfussed by cornering. It’s neat, tidy and grips well, but it could never hope to be a sports car. Especially given Volvo’s ditched anything approaching a rear torque bias. This is a car that knowingly coerces you into a calmer way of life.
The interior aims to play its part too, plumbing all the screens straight into Google for quicker, more intuitive use as well as live charger data within Maps. It’s all pretty smart, too, save for the fact the system won’t currently host Apple CarPlay. Oops. Otherwise it has all the zen interior ambience you’d hope from a Volvo with a silent drivetrain.
Volvo says it’s been penned with design as its priority, and you can tell, with rear headroom predictably naff for anyone six foot or over. There are plentiful neat touches by way of compensation, nearly all with a wholesome sustainable story to back up their materials. Leather isn’t an option. But if you’re sold on a C40 and can’t wait for cheaper, more appropriately powered versions to arrive, that Polestar 2 is an option.