2022 Volvo C40 Recharge First Drive: Driving Volvo’s Future, Today
Volvo’s aim is to offer only electric vehicles by 2030, which is less than eight years from today. They are joined by Cadillac, Jaguar, Renault, and Rolls Royce in announcing that its entire lineup will soon drop internal combustion engines to make way for the exclusive use of fully-electric powertrains.
We recently had the opportunity to drive the brand’s second all-electric offering, the C40 Recharge around the Palm Springs area of California, including a quick trip over to Joshua Tree National Park.
| Quick Stats | 2022 Volvo C40 Recharge |
| Motor | Synchronous, permanent magnet |
| Power | 2 – 204 hp (150 kW) Total output: 408 hp (300 kW) |
| 0-60 | 4.5 seconds |
| Charging speeds | 11 kW (Level 2) 150 kW (DC fast charge) |
| Range | 226 miles (EPA) |
| Battery pack | 78 kWh (total capacity) 75 kWh (usable capacity) |
| Price as tested | $59,845 (before incentives) |
We’ve already driven the Volvo XC40 Recharge on multiple occasions, and have always loved the driving experience. The C40 Recharge is the “coupe” version of the XC40 Recharge, and besides the sloped hatch which reduces rear headroom and available cargo space, it’s very hard to tell the difference between the two. And that’s mostly a good thing.
The driving dynamics are excellent. The C40 Recharge is well balanced, the steering has just the right amount of feedback, and isn’t too heavy. Volvo claims the C40 Recharge can accelerate from a standstill to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds which is slightly faster than its sibling, the XC40 Recharge, but honestly, it feels even faster than that.
Both vehicles share the same 400+ hp, 487-lb-ft dual-motor powertrain.
The C40 Recharge has 7″ of ground clearance, so we jumped at the opportunity to venture slightly off of the course that Volvo selected for us and do a little off-roading. The vehicle was surprisingly capable and took on the challenge without showing any signs of difficulty.
The seating position is also very high and offers very good outward vision, save the tiny rear window that is a result of the sloped rear hatch. The interior is virtually the same as in the XC40 Recharge, with its Scandinavian design more than just subtly apparent. Much of the interior materials are made from recycled materials yet they still look and feel premium. Volvo tells us that the C40 Recharge is the first vehicle ever offered by Volvo that doesn’t offer a real leather option.
“There is no long-term future for cars with an internal combustion engine,” said Henrik Green, chief technology officer.
The 9″ center display looks a bit puny compared to many of the other BEV choices in this category. Its low positioning isn’t ideal either, as I much prefer screens that are higher on the dash so my eyes don’t have to look down quite as much. It’s much better (and I suspect safer) if you only have to look quickly to your right than to your right and also down to view the screen.
The native Android operating system works wonderfully with voice commands to perform touch-free functions like changing the cabin temperature and entering a destination in the navigation system. The touchscreen interface isn’t as snappy as the best systems we’ve tested, but it’s not nearly as laggy as the systems found in the Volkswagen ID.4 or the Jaguar I-Pace.
Charging up
Just as in the Volvo XC40 Recharge – and Polestar 2, the C40 Recharge has a 78 kWh battery pack, of which 75 kWh is the usable capacity. Since Volvo allows such a high percentage of the total battery pack to be utilized, the manufacturer recommends charging to no more than 90% for daily charging, and there is a prompt in the charging settings to remind you of that. Owners set the maximum charging level in the vehicle settings and can adjust it to suit their range needs on any given day.
The maximum charge rate on a 240-volt level 2 charging station is 11 kW, and the C40 Recharge comes with a dual-voltage 120-v / 240-v portable charging cable that can deliver 40-amps (9.6 kW) to the vehicle and will fully charge it from zero to 100% in about nine hours. Customers can elect to purchase a 48-amp charging station and charge slightly faster. A 48-amp (11 kW) charging station can fully recharge the C40 Recharge in eight hours.
As for DC fast charging, the C40 Recharge has a maximum DC fast charge rate of 150 kW and Volvo says it will recharge from 10% to 80% in 37 minutes. As always, we prefer to do our own DC fast charge recordings to analyze the entire charging curve.
Therefore, we obtained special permission from Volvo to take our vehicle out for a longer test drive than the rest of the invited journalists to allow us to draw the battery down to zero and record a full 0 to 100% charging session on an Electrify America 350 kW DC fast charging station. We’d like to thank the folks at Volvo for giving us that special permission, even though they were a bit afraid that we would run out and need to be towed – something that PR managers that run these media drives have nightmares about.
But we convinced them that we knew what knew were doing, and they allowed us to go for it. However, it wasn’t to be. We drove it down to zero and plugged it in. The charging session started out fine. We were up to 20% state of charge after eight minutes and C40 Recharge was accepting 143 kW when the charging station made a popping noise and shut off. We quickly plugged it back into another station, but that station would only deliver 43 kW to the car, so we gave up. So much for mapping out the full charging curve.
Volvo representatives did promise to get us a C40 Recharge for a loan once they are available in the coming months. When that happens, we’ll do our 70-mph range test as well as complete DC fast charge recordings.