The 2023 Volvo XC60 Recharge Is A Quicker & More Usable Plug-In Hybrid Luxury SUV

Almost five years ago, Volvo finally gave us a completely redesigned version of its best-selling vehicle, the XC60 compact SUV. Now, at the same time, Volvo also dipped its toe into the electrified ERA with the XC60 T8, a

plug

-in

hybrid

that offered nearly 400 horsepower and about 18 miles of electric range. Since then, the competition has become increasingly competitive, especially when it comes to electrified vehicles, so for

2023

I support the revamped Volvo XC60

recharge

, from which they removed the T8 name. nomenclature and also included a larger 18.8 kilowatt hour battery that promises up to 35 miles of range and 455 horsepower, so if you've had your eye on a

plug

-in XC60 and wanted something that's a little

more

competitive in In terms of autonomy and performance, how does the renewed charging of the XC60 work?

Stack Up stay tuned to find out before we start talking about the exterior styling of this model. Let me first show you what's under the hood because the Recharge model is designed to be the flagship of the 2-liter direct injection with an electric motor at the rear. Also seriously beefed up the power output of the rear electric motor and the battery pack which I mentioned earlier is 18.8 kilowatts or about 15 of which are

usable

now the power output just for the gasoline engine remember this is a turbo self-made four-cylinder. At an eight-speed automatic, a stepped automatic makes about 313 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque.

Now when you add that rear electric motor which adds about 143 horsepower and 228 pound-feet of torque, the total combined figure is 455 horsepower and 523 pound-feet of torque now. I also want you to note that the electric motor used to only have about 87 horsepower, now it makes 143, which has improved significantly and is still not as much as the leader for me right now, which is the Lexus nx450h. Plus, it has about 180 horsepower on its own, but we'll talk about that during the driving scene. Volvo says the performance of this car when you have it in power mode should be 0-60 in under 5 seconds, closer to 4.5 seconds.

Give it a try now that we have our 0-60 test rig and as I mentioned above, you'll get about 35 miles on a full charge when you have this plugged in and drive it like an EV with fuel economy from just the gas engine. Volvo alone says you'll get around 28 MPG combined, so they're not bad fuel economy numbers, but they're not class-leading either. This car has towing capacity, it can tow up to 3,500 pounds and while sitting it weighs about 4,700 pounds, but let's go ahead and close this hood and I want to show you here on the driver's side fender, this is where you'll find the tailgate. loading port.

This car has a 3.6 kilowatt on-board charger, which means they can Level Two Fast Charging of this vehicle or Faster Charging of this vehicle and about four and a half to five hours, which is slower compared to something like the Lexus, which can do it in about half that time due to its faster 6.6 kilowatt onboard charger, so I was surprised. That Volvo didn't upgrade the charger, but remember that if you do it to a level one it will still take about 12 hours. Now looking at the front fascia of this car, you can see that this model is painted in silver with the bright package.

You can also get a dark package along with a designed North Star that will remove the chrome and replace it with black accents. You can see that all the Recharge models will come with their full LED headlights with Thor's hammer. It has LED low and high beams. Ada LED turn signal temporary running lights without fog lights The vulva has removed that on this particular model you can see that there is

more

chrome with some functional air vents The Volvo grill was updated a couple of years ago with their Loomis, their new Volvo logo with again the Chrome accents I would definitely like to see this car with the North Star design or with dark accents painted in white.

This particular color combination is a little too simple for me. Jane. It's a little more conservative, but again, Volvo offers several different styles. signs to make this car stand out a little more and make it a little sportier now, looking at the wheels, these are the standard 20 inch factory wheels that you get with this particular finish, you can see they're kind of two-spoke or They are dual-spoke with a two-tone machine and a black interior radio design. They are mounted on two 55 45 R20 tires. Valve also offers a 21-inch wheel and a smaller 19-inch wheel on other models or even an 18-inch wheel.

This model here also comes with its four corner air suspension which has a load of 15 to 100 which can easily increase the ground clearance by an inch if you have it in its off-road mode now at 185 inches long and a distance between 112.2 inch long axles, this is about the right size for the compact

luxury

SUV space, this car, the design has been around for a few years and I still think it looks good, you can see that the molding of The window is chrome, it has a panoramic glass roof with the silver vintage finish roof rails have integrated turn signal mirrors which again can be darkened.

If you go with the dark trim, you can see the fuel tank door that's there in the back on the driver or passenger side and then Overall, from the back you can see that the styling is pretty much the same - it has these LED taillights that are exclusive to many Volvo models, they write Volvo on the back and then there's a T8 all-wheel drive

recharge

badge there that recharge is the new part of the name this year and then you can't see tips of visible exhaust. Volvo is going with that considering the stance is to go fully electric.

Now, opening up the trunk area, you can see that this model here has about 23 cubic feet of trunk space with the seats up. You can see if you look below. There is good storage space here. The battery pack is in the back. Here are the 12 volt batteries. Back here along with a mobile charger. If you fold those seats, it will expand. charging to around 63 cubic feet, which is about 10 to 15 more than most of its competitors, so moving on to the interior of this

2023

XC60 T8 Recharge, first let me show you the key fob. You can see this is the current key that Volvo Introduced in 2015 on the buttons. on the side to lock, unlock the trunk and then there is the panic release button or the panic button.

You should also be able to access this phone via your smartphone, but I don't have access to the Volvo app at the moment. Opening the door, I can see, first of all, very conventional door handles, just touch that which closes the door, it has electric folding mirrors that you can adjust to fold or unfold and then looking inside you can see that it is a material really interesting fabric. a recycled wool material Volvo says it's 30 wool 70 a recycled material this is actually called Midnight zinc it's a really cool material that reminds me of jeans these seats also adjust 12 different ways uh with a lumbar adjustment and you also have two person memory on both the driver and front passenger side, these also have three-level heating with a heated steering wheel; however if you want cooling seats you can't get them in this wool material and if you want massaging seats you have to go for the Napa Leather So I would personally choose that just because I like the massage feature with this material you don't really need the cooling function because it stays much cooler in the heat and much warmer in the cold now when you look at the door. panel, you can see that my tester has the Bowers and Wilkins 3200 premium sound, which sounds amazing.

I'm not sure it's worth a three thousand dollar price tag, but if you're not, if you're an audiophile, you'll love being able to see, the door panel has a soft touch injection molded plastic, more of that wool material. and then a stitched area of ​​leather over the armrest. The window controls feel quite high quality, typical Volvo, these are one touch for all four along with the electric mirrors down here. Look, it's even padded, which is nice and then with the air suspension, this car really lowers to help you get in and out of the vehicle a little bit easier, which again is really nice now getting in and removing the door, the Gate has a solid Funk sound. this is based on the scalable product architecture that they introduced a couple of years ago and then the rest of this interior that you can see looks pretty familiar now, to start the car, there's a little rotary knob here, just turn it clockwise. your foot on the brake and then the vehicle comes to life, you can't see the traditional starting noise because this is a plug-in

hybrid

and you can see the instrument panel here was redesigned for 2022 and a half, you can see there's a 12 and a Half inch screen here that you can customize in that you can basically turn the map display in the center on or off, although right now it's working, there are several cases where that doesn't turn on the map when I press this. button here so it's like a little software glitch that turned out to be working now there's a nine inch touch screen here this is running their new Android based operating system.

You can see that it now has carplay but it is a wired connection carplay or You can also log in to your Google account and you can basically use this as an extension of your phone. This system is definitely an improvement over 7 Connected Crimes, but I still think the screen is starting to look a little small. The software has improved Google. The voice commands work quite well, but again, it just doesn't have the same wow factor that it used to have in 2018. Now, in terms of the materials here, you can see that there is genuine stitching on the top of the dash.

I love this. art deco wood material here with aluminum details it is padded here it is padded somewhat padded here padded here which is good, my tester is a definitive finish it also has the front screen and then you can see here the steering wheel, it is manual adjustment of tilt and telescoping no panels on the steering wheel and then the horn sounds good, it doesn't sound puny or embarrassing like on some competitors I've tried, the center console can be seen here, this is the latest finish and it has the Crystal shifter hole this It controls the 8 speed automatic basically, if you want to put it in reverse you have to click up twice to go in reverse.

You can see there is your rearview camera with the parking sensors. You can also tap it and go to a 3 60 view. This view is useful, but it's not as useful as some of the other competitors I've seen. The graphics aren't that great to get into either. You have to go back twice to move forward and press B to enter. park, you can see that the piano black plastic trim shows a lot of fingerprints, smudges and dust all over it. You also get a wireless phone charging pad here, which is definitely nice. You have a little bit of 12 volts there.

You have the volume knob on top. here and then you can see here, this is what the home screen looks like. You can also swipe and change a couple of these widgets. You can also press it to show all your different apps and you can also swipe it down. to go into a couple of settings there, but your actual settings button is here, this is where you'll adjust your drive mode. There used to be a drive mode selector here. Now Volvo has moved to the screen, which I don't love. You can also tell it what to do with the battery charge, you can adjust the driver assistance, you can change the steering, feel the air suspension, stuff like that, that's all really cool, but I really don't like how Volvo has moved so many in the screen we used to have some controls here it looks like you can see there was room for it once here this is your electronic parking brake you can see the padded armrest here there is a center console with two USB C charging ports that's where you find the USB connector for plug in your smartphone and then as I mentioned above these seats look great, feel great, are comfortable and supportive but I would probably go with the leather just to getthe massage seat option.

Here you can see it. it has a frameless rear view or rear view mirror which is good it has LED lighting or map lighting along with LED cabin lighting although Volvo doesn't let you change the color just the intensity and then you can see here what it has. a big panoramic glass sunroof that can also be opened, which is nice, and there's also a big glovebox here that's cushioned and lined with felt, so overall, in terms of storage, the XC60 has a lot of that and It has an excellent sound system. It has great interior sight lines and quality of materials of course you will pay a pretty penny to get this fully loaded version looking at the back seat the XC60 Recharge definitely has a

usable

back seat it has about 38 inches of legroom back here and you can see the back seat also has the same beautiful Midnight zinc wool material as the front materials back here also a high quality, soft touch padded area here with this aluminum or metal accent door handle really sturdy feeling that you're now getting back here you can see the back seat has about 38 inches of legroom, as I mentioned, and when I come back here and close the door, someone like my tall five foot seven, I can feel comfortable Easily, there's also a pretty good knee room here, this area right here, however, as you'll notice, it has a very large hump and that's because the battery pack is actually mounted underneath here on the center column of the vehicle.

It's an interesting placement that eats up space for the center passenger. but it's good that the floor and cargo area are not affected. You've got three-level heated seats back here, which is nice, a little storage shelf here, then you'll have two USBC charging ports, which is nice, these seats you can see have. an armrest that folds down, if you look for a couple of supports, they come out over here and then if you look to adjust the seat, unfortunately they don't fill out or they don't recline, but if you press this button over here you can see that this allows the seat folds down and gives you a relatively flat cargo floor along with a pass through here in the center if you have longer items but really need to carry passengers, but overall the back seat is definitely good, this is on par with the Lexus NX.

I like how the rear seat air vents are here on the pillars and then you have a nice view of the panoramic roof which technically you can't get a Pano roof on the plug. -in the hybrid version of the Lexus, so as most of you know, Volvo has a fairly ambitious goal of making all of its vehicles electric or electrified by 2025 or 2030 and the Volvo XC60 is the best-selling model of the company, so now they are back in the XC60 recharge, it was renamed T8 plug-in hybrid from a few years ago because earlier this year Volvo updated the battery pack, so now they call it battery pack extended autonomy because we have an 18.8 kilowatt hour battery pack that we have. a beefed-up electric motor in the rear that now delivers 455 horsepower and 523 pounds of torque.

I had the opportunity to drive this car briefly in Palm Springs, but now that I've had the car for a full week, I want to put it to the test with my battery. test and the first thing I wanted to test again is the Volvo 0-60 Performance. I think it says 4.5 seconds or 4.9 seconds, but let's go ahead and see what we can get. I have the car in power mode right now, we just go to braking torque, oh this thing feels fast, oh this thing feels fast, 4.47 seconds, wow, just a tick under 4.5 seconds, this makes it one of the fastest accelerating

luxury

vehicles in the segment.

Now the segment is mainly made up of the Lexus nx450h plus this one. car and the Audi Q5 plug-in hybrid, BMW abandoned the For me it should have been the vehicle that Volvo launched in 2018, but back then the rear electric motor just wasn't strong enough and it didn't have enough electric range, now they've really rectified that and it's very impressive the performance in This car is almost Unnecessary, you don't really need it to be that fast, but it's nice that it's that fast. We'll try it one more time here. Oh, I didn't break the torque just now, but you really feel the front tires. it actually turns 4.75 seconds there and that's because it goes a little bit more uphill, so again that's an incredible speed and compared to the previous smaller battery pack, this is at least half a second faster, so What Volvo Bravo on the acceleration part is almost unnecessarily fast, but it's a good thing that it is Now the only change they made this year or for the updated model is that they removed the drive mode selector on this car, so now I have to go to the screen here and go drive.

I have had the car in power. mode to show you the maximum 0-60 now I'm going to go to Pure mode now I'm going to go to Pure mode this is where the car turns off the gas engine and it will try to drive more like an electric vehicle or it will try, it will drive purely like a vehicle electric until you literally pass the click point on the accelerator pedal, and that is what will essentially give you maximum acceleration, it will activate the gasoline engine, but in this mode here it says Volvo. You can go up to 35 miles on a full charge in my week's testing.

In fact, I was able to show around 45 miles on a full charge, which is very impressive and speaks volumes about the efficiency of this vehicle and how usable it is. The electric range is on par with the current leader, which is the Lexus NX 450h plus, which is again based on the RAV4 Prime powertrain and unlike the old T8 model, I put my foot here if I don't pass the Clickpoint, this It actually has enough power and torque to get me where I need to go in pure electric mode. There is no noise because you heard that the 2-liter turbo doesn't always make the most refined noises.

Sometimes it's a noisy buzzy engine. but in this mode here it has a pedal drive it has regeneration from the B part of the transmission in this mode here you can see I have my foot on the floor, it's definitely a lot slower but it's also not as unnecessarily slow as you. You won't want to drive this car in pure EV mode, as the previous model constantly engaged the gas engine because it simply didn't have enough power to reach 60 miles per hour or accelerate without waking up. the gas engine, this new one definitely rectifies that and let's go ahead and see what we can get just 0-60 in pure EV mode.

Remember I can't get past the click point, so my foot is on the floor but it doesn't wake up. the gasoline engine because I am not at the click point and it is definitely slow, I remember only 143 horsepower in this mode, 10.2 seconds, which is actually not bad, it is about a second slower compared to the electric only mode on the Lexus NX when I have it on pure electric propulsion, so it's not bad, it's a shame it's slower, but considering the fact that the electric motor is about 30 horsepower less than the NX, it has makes sense considering the power deficit, but we've got 228 pound-feet of torque, so tough it out here. you can, it's actually a rear-wheel drive car when you do, when it's in pure mode, this is actually a rear-wheel drive car because the electric motor essentially only drives the rear wheels, so you can turn the car, spinning the tires when you're turning from a stop, which is a bit funny, but again, this is where Volvo has really rectified a lot of the flaws it had with its T8 powertrain.

We have the sensation of driving with one pedal, so I lift the accelerator pedal, here the car. it starts to break down and this is something the Lexus NX doesn't have and then put the pedal to the metal and you only have Instant Power instant torque, it's obviously not as fast as a pure EV but this kind of performance will be enough for most. people around town and you can do it again in my 45 mile tests on a full charge which is very very impressive and then whenever you want you know drive this thing in power mode and smoke people in the light that will give you 0-60 in four and a half seconds which is crazy plus you get the typical luxuries of a Volvo the ride quality is smooth this car is air suspended and it just glides over the bumps even though I have these 20- inch wheels, you can also upgrade to a 21 inch wheel which I haven't had a chance to drive yet, visibility is really good, this car has Volvo's Pro driver assist system where it will actively keep you on the lane that has, um uh, forward.

Forward collision warning edition has full speed range adaptive cruise control visibility is good the seats uh this midnight zinc wool blend seat I like them a lot they are actually comfortable they are supportive they hug me very well they are missing a cooling function but I don't necessarily need it on this model because the seat fabric itself doesn't get very hot or cold. I have heated seats on a heated steering wheel, but if you want the massaging seats you have to go with the Napa Leather, which is probably what I would go for anyway because I just like having the massaging seat and then the Bowers and Wilkins stereo it's really nice.

I mean the technology in this Volvo car has improved, but it's still not great, for example, I don't. I don't love how carplay is on this kind of thing, it's not wireless yet, but at least it's finally there. It has Android based operating system where you can give it Google commands. You have a 12.3-inch screen here, which is fully digital, although at the moment the map is displayed in the instrument cluster. There are several times where I drove this car and it didn't really show that which isn't great and then if you drive this primarily as a hybrid it was averaging around 27 MPG in my week.

It's worth a try, which is fine, but it's about 10 MPG less than what you'll get in the Lexus and that car will go from 0 to 60 about a second slower, but 5.5 still isn't bad, but again 4.5 gives you the bragging rights and to be honest the way this car drives I wish this powertrain was in the Lexus RX 500hf sport performance. I recently drove it and I actually said to myself, wouldn't it be better if it was a plug-in hybrid with more power and that's essentially what this car gives you, it gives you an extra 100 horsepower almost over that Lexus and it gives you electric range only, so Volvo's new charging system, its T8 powertrain in this car and its other vehicles is very impressive, but in some ways it makes more sense in the XC60 as a compact luxury SUV, but I'm really impressed and it has now quickly become one of my favorite luxury compact SUVs, which is also a plug-in hybrid, so although the current generation of the Volvo XC60 has been around for a few years, the design is becoming quite familiar, There are still plenty of reasons to choose this vehicle over its competitors and I must say that after spending a week with the flagship T8 Recharge model, Volvo has made some pretty surprising improvements to its plug. -On hybrid powertrains, a lot of the criticism I had about the smaller battery pack and less powerful rear electric motor has been rectified with this model, it can now be driven as a pure EV vehicle as long as you don't go past that point of click. most of you will find the performance in EV mode to be quite acceptable when you switch it to power mode and drive this vehicle like a hybrid on a full charge, it goes from 0 to 60 in four and a half seconds which is almost unnecessarily fast for something like this, but it's nice to have and in terms of the comfort aspect, it has a really spacious and spacious interior that also feels well made, the seats are comfortable, although I could probably skip the midnight zinc wool fabric and go for for the Napa. leather so you can get the massage seats and the back seat and the trunk area as you saw is also very usable in any case the design of this car is getting a little too mundane you are starting to see it everywhere so It would have been nice for Volvo to show me one that had the North Star engineering package, something a little sportier, but again, that won't be to everyone's taste because this model is again designed to appeal to the masses.

Volvo managed to sell just over 40,000 units last year, easily making it its best-selling model, and it's actually doing quite well in terms of its competitors - just cars like the BMW X5, the Mercedes- Benz GLC and the Lexus NXThey outsell, but this also beats other competitors and Volvo offers so many different models to choose from which makes this car even more attractive. Speaking of which, if you're looking to buy an XC60, they start around 44,43,500 for the base T5, if you want the plug-in hybrid, whatever. It's going to cost you about twelve thousand dollars more, this car starts at about fifty-seven thousand dollars and this is where the XC60 top-up starts to get quite expensive because this model has the ultimate package and basically almost all the options, although could be even more expensive.

If you go with the North Star designed with everything, this bottle costs just under 75,000, that's right, seventy-five thousand dollars is a stupid amount of money and, unfortunately, because this car is not made in North America, for now it no longer qualifies for the full 7,500 federal tax credit, which is something Volvo could have claimed earlier this year before the inflation reduction law, but unfortunately now, because it is not made in the US In the US or North America, it no longer qualifies for that, making it a bit more expensive. than some of the all-electric vehicles made in North America, and compared to its main competitor, the Lexus NX, that car costs about ten thousand dollars less, offers similar electric range, offers better efficiency, and isn't as fast.

I don't get it with some of the premium features on this car, so keep that in mind if you remove the Bowers and Wilkins stereo and the air suspension, that will bring the price down to around seventy thousand dollars, which is more reasonable, but you have to Take a step forward. down and a final tune up to get it in that sixty thousand dollar range which I think is probably going to be where most people are going to play when they're considering a vehicle like this, but with all that said, I hope you've enjoyed my full overview of the 2023 Volvo to redline reviews.

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