How does is drive?
VOLVO
XC90
Silently. When the car is in “Pure” mode, you
can hear the passengers swallow, which may be
disturbing but quite amazing too. The car is still
as comfortable as any other XC90, the only difference is that it’s much quieter. You can travel
up to 43km in full electric mode and when you
put the car in “Hybrid” mode, you get a combination of both petrol and electric power. If you’re
in a hurry and you’re fully charged, you’ll be happy to know that in “Power” mode you can use
all 300kW to get going quickly. Even in “beast
mode”, the T8 maintains a level of civility and
sophistication through smooth power delivery.
When you’ve hit a load shedding situation and
you’ve run out of electric power, you can charge
up at home to give your car life again. The good
news is that if you do travel longer than the
43km electric range, you do have internal combustion to get you home.
What does the future hold?
The 4×4 is the one car that has always been hailed as the big bad wolf in the industry. This
is because cars of this nature normally use large fuel guzzling engines. Times have changed
recently though and Volvo has helped shape the change, by using one of the largest cars in
the market. Since the launch of the all new XC90, the public’s reception of this car has been
nothing but good. Awards such as the Wesbank COTY 2016 and the Cars.co.za “Best Premium SUV” award proves this, as well as numerous other international awards.
The use of 2.0 litre turbocharged petrol and diesel engines in such a large car is one of the
most important features of the XC90. These small engines have drastically improved the fuel
consumption of the range. Now to be even more efficient, Volvo have thrown in an 9 kWh
Lithium-ion battery pack to their powerful 235kW petrol engine. As a result, a combined
power output of 300kW from both engines gives the car immense power and a claimed fuel
economy figure of 2.1 litres/ 100km! (Sounds crazy right?) Realistically, we achieved around
5.5 litres/ 100km but that was toggling through all the modes and driving in the city. Even at
that figure, that is a remarkable number to achieve in a seven seating SUV.
Regarding aesthetics and design, the T8 keeps the same look and feel that its siblings have. It’s
available in Momentum, Inscription and R-Design Package. What is standard in the T8, apart
from other things is a sunroof and a crystal gear knob (fancy right?)
Cars like these are very important to the industry, because they represent the future. Obviously as systems progress, this technology will keep
getting better and more affordable to the gen-
eral public. Soon we’ll even be able to go further
with hybrid cars and it’s nice to see that Volvo
are once again at the forefront of the change.
That being said, other companies like BMW now
offer a competitor, such as the X5 40e. This car
uses a similar setup and we’re sure that it’s only
a matter of time until other brands join the club.
The T8 XC90