Volvo lead the charge to electric

The company, always one of the most forward thinking brands, has introduced the XC40 Recharge, the company’s first ever fully electric car and the first model to appear in its brand-new Recharge car line concept.

XC40 Recharge, based on the multi-award-winning and best-selling XC40 small SUV, is the first of a family of fully electric Volvos. It represents a milestone for Volvo: the company’s first electric car and the first Volvo with a brand-new infotainment system powered by Google’s Android operating system.

Over the next five years, Volvo Cars will launch a fully electric car every year, as it seeks to make all-electric cars 50 per cent of global sales by 2025, with the rest hybrids.

Recharge will be the name for all chargeable Volvos with a fully electric and plug-in hybrid powertrain.

From early 2020, customers entering the Volvo Cars website will first be asked whether they want a Volvo Recharge car or not. To encourage electric driving, every Volvo Recharge plug-in hybrid model will come with free electricity for a year, provided through a refund for the average electricity cost.

“We have said this several times before: for Volvo Cars, the future is electric,” said Håkan Samuelsson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Volvo Cars. “Today we take a major new step in that direction with the launch of our fully electric XC40 and the Recharge car line.”

XC40 Recharge is said to be everything customers expect from a Volvo, with the addition of a state-of-the-art, fully electric all-wheel-drive powertrain that offers a range of 249 miles on a single charge and output of 408bhp. The battery charges to 80 per cent of its capacity in 40 minutes on a fast-charger system.

Every Volvo model in the range includes a Recharge option, from the XC40 small SUV, via the 60 series cars to the company’s flagship, the XC90 large SUV. Volvo Cars is the only car maker to offer a plug-in variant of every model in its line-up.