RANGE TEST VOLVO XC40 T4 RECHARGE PLUG-IN HYBRID

I’m going to test the range on the highway first. I want to find out the minimum range of XC40 T4 Recharge by testing it at higher average speeds. At the beginning of the drive, the battery is fully charged to 100%. The range indicator is first at 40 km and then it went up to 42 km. I did the test in July and it was around 21 degrees.

After the first checkpoint, the battery was at 75%, I covered 10 km and the range indicator is at 32 km. The theoretical range would be 42 km. The battery is now at 50%. I have traveled 20 km. There is still 21 km of range left. The theoretical range would therefore be 41 km. At 25%, the range seems to decrease further and further. I have driven 28 km and there is still 9 km of range left. The theoretical range dropped to 37 km. Will it drop even more? Let’s see the final results. The battery is now completely empty and the result is 34 km of driving range on the motorway .

Now let’s test the range at lower average speeds in the city. I want to know what the maximum range of this car could be. At the beginning of the drive, the battery is fully charged to 100%. The range indicator is first at 40 km and then it went up to 45 km. We still have 50% range in the battery. I drove 25 km. There is still 20 km of range in the battery. Theoretical range is 45 km. There wasn’t much to report at the 25%, so let’s go straight to the final figure. The range in the city is 45 km . The XC40 T4 Recharge seems to have a more consistent range in urban driving conditions than compared to highway driving.

Now let’s see how long it takes to charge the battery. This battery has a net capacity of 8.5 kWh. Volvo says it takes 3 hours to charge the battery with a charge rate of 3.7kW. I have done several tests at a public charging station. The public charging stations were rated at 22kW, but as far as I know the Volvo’s onboard charger has a max charging speed of 3.7kW, so this is what we got. It took me 2h40 minutes to fully charge the car .

What about fuel consumption you may ask? I made a total test drive of 271 km, of which about 50 electric km’s and 220 petrol km’s and the average fuel consumption was 6.5 l / 100 km .

In conclusion, I can say that the range of the Volvo XC40 T4 Recharge is somewhere between 34 and 45 km , assuming comparable driving conditions.