MOTORING


Volvo’s ‘twin-engine’ 4x4


Interest is growing in hybrid, plug-in electric hybrid and purely electric vehicles. Volvo is one of the car makers to dedicate itself to this technology. Nick Jones spent time with the company’s latest offering to see how it coped with everyday living.


Although they still represent a very small proportion of new car sales in the UK, something around four per cent, interest in hybrid and electric vehicles is growing. The possibility of congestion charge-style levies for


driving petrol and diesel cars in city centres in the near future and the announcement that the sale of new petrol and diesel-powered cars will be banned in the UK from 2040 will accelerate demand. There is much work needed on infrastructure to


make the technology available to the two-thirds of UK households which can’t plug in a car overnight because they don’t have off-street or dedicated parking. But that didn’t stop Volvo recently announcing that it


would end production of diesel and petrol-powered cars from 2019 in favour of hybrid and electric alternatives. One such vehicle is the Volvo XC90 T8. The XC90 is not a new car. It’s been around for many


years and has built a decent following. But it now has hybrid technology built in – making it


effectively a ‘twin-engined’ Volvo. To make clear, what that means is that rather than


running on only petrol or only battery power, the car runs on a combination of the two. In this Volvo’s case, it has a four-cylinder petrol


engine that pumps out 320bhp and an electric motor that generates a further 87bhp - giving a combined output of over 400bhp. That’s a decent amount of hoof under the right boot. But the driver still gets to choose what power they want from where as the car has five pre-set but distinct


68 business network November 2017


driving modes - Hybrid, Pure electric, Power, AWD and Save - each offering different efficiency- enhancing/power characteristics. The eight-speed automatic gearbox is incredibly


smooth, selecting gears seamlessly. You really don’t feel the changes. Choose ‘pure electric’ mode and you can drive the


car for nearly 30 miles from a single charge without using the petrol engine at all. But if, like me, you like the throb and growl of a


decent V8 up front, driving along silently feels really eerie until you get used to the silence. Once the batteries become discharged, or if you


change the driving mode, the petrol engine takes over. The claim by Volvo under these conditions is


combined emissions of 49g/km and economy of 134.5mpg which makes even the first year VED only £10. Select ‘hybrid’ from the start of your journey and


most gentle accelerations will use only the electric engines, the petrol coming in seamlessly once on the move or above certain speeds, such as on the motorway. In ‘hybrid’ I achieved 31mpg and a range of 300


miles from the batteries. ‘Power’ mode is a different story. This is where the


XC90 can achieve a top speed of 140mph, sprinting past 60mph in just 5.3 seconds from standstill. To help this large 4x4 cope with this level of power,


the suspension lowers itself to improve handling and stability.


FACTFILE


MODEL Volvo XC90 T8


PRICE From £48,655


PERFORMANCE Top Speed: 140mph 0-60 mph: 5.3 seconds


CO2 EMISSIONS 49g/km


FUEL CONSUMPTION 134.5mpg


‘The eight-speed automatic gearbox is incredibly smooth, selecting gears seamlessly. You really don’t feel the changes’


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