Sweden first all-electric involvement comes in a compact size.

Price: $85,900

Powertrain and economy: Single front-mounted motor, 170kW/330Nm, 69kWh battery, combined claimed economy 19.3kWh/100km.

Vital statistics: 4400mm long, 2034mm wide, height 1591mm, 2702mm wheelbase, luggage capacity 405 litres.

Safety: 5 stars ANCAP

We like: Well-sorted technology, maintains Volvo-ness, practical.

Not so much: Eco trim lacks pizzazz, some torque steer, poor rearward visibility.

USING this car for a petrolhead trip might have once seemed ironic, provocative even.

As a wholly battery-reliant machine, the Volvo C40 Recharge represents the new and, yet, the electric penetration of passenger car sales last year ending with 10 percent share, almost double the 2021 standing, means this is no longer an impending technology. With so much more to experience this year alone, more growth is a given.

Of course, electric holding the winning hand is not what everyone wants to hear, let alone accept, especially on days such as that one in late January. In all likelihood, the mix of hold-outs against ‘the inevitable’ might have been in rich count at the Taupo historic Grand Prix, an event fully dedicated to a glorious past, with big fields of magnificent machines.

Feel the noise and you wish planet petrol was somehow found. It’s hard to dwell on what a world in which the fare thundering around the lake town’s circuit in late January would not involve.

A Formula 5000 is a large single seater racing car, created as a Formula One alternate, popular for but a few years in the early 1970s, now enjoying a whole new fanbase. F5000 cars driven well – and my mate Kevin, who’d we come to watch, is up to that - are seriously, gob-smackingly fast. The sight and sound is intoxicating. Yet reality is that this stuff is on borrowed time, not just for running cost but also rarity value, that their epitaphs are likely already being prepped.

And then what? Well, maybe electric, maybe hydrogen, maybe synthetic fuel … but certainly something else. Change is unavoidable.

Change is already happening. The Volvo was far from alone in representing mains-reliant tech in the spectator park that January and, while electrics were not actually racing, at least one assuredly did hit the track.

This was an event in which the Jaguar brand was specifically celebrated. When owner cars toured the circuit that lunchtime, virtually the full suite of product from past and present was involved. I wonder how many ‘fans’ even twigged to the iPace that interloped amongst all those V8s and V12s?

Jaguar has, of course, determined to be electric by 2025. Volvo is also on a mission to evict combustion engines. It is claiming 50 percent of its sales will be EV by 2025, and 100 percent by 2030, The C40 is an important car. Volvo’s ‘Recharge’ designation is is also badge-speak for plug-ins, but in this country it’s more about emergent models with pure battery involvement.

The XC40 and C40 both now carry it, the latter having special standing as the Sino-Swede’s first car intended to be exclusively electric, a status that doesn’t mean it’s bespoke from the ground up. That this is a coupe version of the XC40, which started with a combustion engine, and still avails that way as an alternate to electric power, is plain to see.

From the front, they are doppelgangers, both facing up with a tidy look in which LED headlamps in Volvo's signature 'Thor's hammer' design' stand out. Only when you move rearward does greater difference in look from the XC become apparent, and it’s mainly about the cut of the roofline.

Whereas the XC is stocky all the way through (hence why it’s marketed as ‘the tough little robot’), with a roof that arcs gently into an angled rear window is as shapely as a coupe sister could be. And, yet, would you call the C40 an especially extrovert car? Not to my eyes.

However, you could call it a slightly more efficient one. Volvo says lab tests show this single-motor edition can go four percent farther at open road pace than the equivalent XC40, thanks to its more aerodynamic design.

Subtly goes further than the styling. In entire ethos, this car seems to be about non-shouty sophistication; an impression that reaches to the driving style, which at this level is something of a lounge driving experience, with the maturity you’d expect from a Volvo, not least in respect to the ride comfort.

The compact sports utility sector is packed with all sorts of options, but it’s hard to pinpoint another that goes about its job with such quiet efficiency.

With emphasis on quiet. Egressing at the Taupo circuit also lent chance to re-introduce something quite patently absent from the five hour drive there and back. Noise.

Old race cars, no more so than the Formula 5000s that were the stars of the show, make loads of it. It’s what draws the crowd.

Electric cars are quite the opposite, because electric car powertrains have nothing much to say for themselves, save for an occasional whine. Yet even in that context, the C40 is a quiet achiever.

More than just the electric soundtrack is low; the usual banes of wind rustle and road roar are also well-sorted. Swedish engineers have always been good at this stuff, but you’d expect a model delivering with the trendy combination of big wheels and the lack of sidewall in the tyres might have issues, particularly when treading coarse chip, the surface condition for most of my drive. Yet the texture that has been very much an annoyance for so many cars seemed really well supressed here.

That doesn’t just make it a more relaxing driver’s car. It’s better for passengers, too. Conversation between the four of us was lively and, inevitably, it turned to the inevitable contention about how cars without engine note lack soul. A point I don’t necessarily disagree with. On the other hand, I did suggest there was some degree of irony raising that subject when in a car whose environment was so monastic as to make it possible to banter in normal conversational tone.

We were only four-up for the last 30 minutes north, and first half hour south. Last aboard and first off was Barry. He was staying at Motutere Bay campground halfway around Lake Taupo’s eastern shore. Josh and I drove from Palmerston North, picking up Dave from Bulls, meeting at the local charging station.

The C40 has a conceivable range of close to 500kms, so it would need a drink to complete this round trip, but in theory had the cojones to complete each half of the run without need for replenishment. In theory.

Doctrine of making use of all opportunities and keeping an electric sustained with regular, short ‘feeds’ has become ingrained. Accordingly, even though I’d left with 95 percent charge and the trip computer assured that gave me enough range to make the 298 kilometre northward leg with 15 percent battery life to spare, the car was nonetheless hooked up for 15 minutes on the Bulls charger while we waited for Dave to arrive and sort himself out, a period in which it went from 80 percent charge to 90.

In all, the car made three replenishment stops that day, all off the ChargeNet system (the car came with a dongle). After Bulls, there was a wee (literally) stop at Waiouru, with Taupo 106lm still distant and 30 percent battery left, consumption at that point at 22.3kWh per 100km. Well, it’s an uphill battle.

Doubling the battery state took 20 minutes. With Barry onboard, it was straight to Taupo circuit, arriving around 11am. I left my passengers and headed into town, having decided replenishing at the hypercharger during the lunchbreak at the track was preferable to faffing about at the end of the day.

Good call. I arrived with a choice of either of the chargers, but within five minutes of me turning up, three more cars arrived, taking the service to full capacity.

The Volvo’s session took 44 minutes – just enough time for me to scoot down to the local sushi shop – and restored the battery from 27 percent to 93, the zap dropping in at around 125kWh for most of the period.

Range now was 310km, easily enough for the return run and more, but as we decided to have dinner in Bulls, it seemed sensible to give the C40 another meal. So it went back on the 50kW unit there (we were about a week too early to use the just-installed hypercharger), to again treble the range, having started with an indicated 95kms’ until empty. On reaching home, it had clocked almost 600kms, and been operational for six hours and 44 minutes’, with average consumption at 19.5kWh/100km; not a bad result with half the trip driven in trhe ‘Normal’ mode, and half in the ‘Eco’ setting, which allows for more free-wheeling when stepping off the throttle.

That’s pretty good, though we’ve seen slightly better from this drivetrain, albeit behind a different badge and bodyshape. A product also owned by China’s Geely, out of the same factory in Linqiao, China, as the C40.

Technically-speaking, the car on test is most closely related to the Polestar 2 Standard Range Rob Maetzig tested last December (https://www.motoringnz.com/tested/2022/12/7/polestar-2-standard-range-road-test-review-charging-station-contretemps). Same powertrain and battery, same platform. Just different clothes, right?

Well, sort of. The C40 single motor 170kW/330Nm P6 on test siting $9000 above the Polestar isn’t just Volvo suggesting it can ask for more on strength of badge pedigree alone with a same-sized car in a different body.

Slip into the Polestar and you sense Volvo-ness; which stands to reason, as the ‘2’ began life as a Gothenburg concept. Slide into the C40, however, and you find a cabin that is even more Volvo. And maybe even a touch more daring; in case you were wondering, what’s embossed into the strip across the passenger side dash and similar sections on the doors is sections of the map of Gothenburg, Volvo’s home town.

The C40 has more finishing touches – as examples, it outfits the rear part of the cabin more generously, with the cup holders, rear air vents and magazine sleeves in the back of the front seats Polestar doesn’t provision - more comforts and, best of all for a long-distance drive, a far superior driving position.

Still, in respect to luxury, it’s all very new-age. Commitment to sustainability these days means ‘posh stuff’ now is a recycled material. C40’s socially conscious image is defined by its seat covering; it’s Volvo’s first car to purposely steer clear of real leather trim. It won’t use what a certain rival calls ‘vegan’ (translation: synthetic) leather. The C40’s seat trims, mats and carpets are all sustainable fabrics, from recycled plastics. That’s a brave punt – invariably salespeople will cop some disbelief that an $85k car can have cloth seats - but there’s hope true believers will get the rationale. I’m not sure I feel the glow of social responsibility as strongly as this maker, but I do concede they’re great seats.

Beyond all that, it’s a Volvo, so the fact that it’s compact and coupe-styled doesn’t inhibit the C40 greatly. Perhaps it could be a little easier to get into the rear – actually, as a tall person, I found I had to duck slightly when slotting into the driving position - but this is a very minor gripe.

In respect to the spaciousness of the cabin proper, the C40 also does better than expected. Sure, the roof shape makes for poor visibility through the tailgate glass and means the back seat passengers have to put up with shallow side windows -also a Polestar problem BTW – but there's still a good level of headroom despite the rear roofline. A full-length glass sunroof lets the light spill in, front and rear and helps lend impression of it being an airy car.

Practicality-wise, it’s also useful. Sure, if you need to regularly carry a lot of stuff, due to it having a more squared back end the XC40 Recharge will probably be a better bet, but the C40’s boot compartment is nonetheless generously sized, even before taking advantage of a under-floor area which can be kept as hidden compartment in which to stow items you’d prefer weren’t seen by prying eyes or opened up to extend the capacity. There’s also the usual under-bonnet frunk, which though mainly to hold the charging cable, nonetheless means it has more of the space and practicality families would desire than the shape would suggest.

Electric’s literally being bum steers is now in vogue. But which I mean the C40, like the Polestar (and Teslas) doesn’t have a key or push button start. Where the latter should be has been blanked off. Instead you activate the motor simply by sitting in the driver’s seat.

The brilliant and clear super-sized portrait touchscreen with swipe-able menus for multiple functions - and core features like nav, audio and phone easily accessible from the home screen – is a nifty staple.

The onboard tech is Google-driven. An update has allowed CarPlay compatibility, but it’s not front and centre. You can see why Volvo went this way. Phone tech has quickly outstripped that of cars over the years, It makes sense that the car is attuned to receive updates your phone will get. It doesn’t alienate iPhones, but clearly prefers Android. One plus here is that the Google Maps nav, which I like a lot, is always up to date. It’s even ultimately capable in some places to identify which electric charging points are (or aren’t) occupied nearby. I’m not sure if that was happening here, though. I tended to rely on the ChargeNet app for that.

Volvo is of course proud of its safety record and the C40 comes packed with all the latest kit to keep you out of trouble, and the inherent strength, airbags and other protection systems if a crash truly is unavoidable. Obviously the goal of the tech is to stop that happening in the first place, so it has a radar/camera monitored cruise control and Volvo’s Pilot Assist to take some strain out of driving, though you need to keep your hand on the wheel. Blind spot warnings, a reversing camera and automatic braking to keep it backing into an unseen hazard are standard. Given how little you can see out of the small rear window that’s no bad thing.

In general driving, it’s easy to like. Operability is silent and smooth. The single motor literally has only half the oomph of the alternate, but somewhat dearer, twin motor P8. It schmoozes along well and has the gumption for decent overtaking, but don’t expect absolute fireworks. Top speed, as per all brand-new Volvos, is limited to 180kmh, but there’s nothing about the P6’s demeanour that suggests it aches to test that limit.

Actually, you don’t feel compelled to give it the absolute ‘hammer’ (Thor reference there), not least at step off, because that delivers enough torque steer to annoy. Maybe this is why this product is reverting to rear-drive in a year from now. I think that’ll make it a better car. It might make the steering sweeter, though I daresay that aspect will still feel the nannying effect of the rather zealous lane keep.

As is usual, the ride quality is enhanced by the battery under the floor. It doesn’t feel as if it is unduly heavy – in urban operation, the steering is favourably light and its small enough to be manoeuvrable - but the weight of that unit translates into a low-slung solidity which, in this case, enhances the sense of it being a tough nugget.

Electric cars are mechanically (if not electronically) simpler than petrol, diesel or hybrid equivalents so there’s less to potentially go wrong. In theory. The reason why this test began with a C40 in metallic red then transferred, after a couple of days, to an equivalent in solid back was due to a fault that quite possibly was with it since point of manufacture.

The red car was operating perfectly until I went into one of the busiest intersections in my town at the busiest time, 8.30am. Turning right, the car moved away under light throttle … then simply shut down. No warning lights or sounds. Nothing untoward. One second, fine. Next second. Not. The instruments, radio, phone … all that still operated. But forward motion ceased. Just. Like. That.

And that was that for the next 25 minutes. An utterly immobile obstacle, resisting everything I did to get it moving again, while traffic worked around it. Fortuitously, no-one hit it. More fortuitously, the dealership was just 400 metres down the street and the chief technician was available.

Working with an expert at Volvo NZ, he pulled some incredible magic with a diagnostic computer and was finally able to coax it into releasing the automatic handbrake, so we could at least push it out of harm’s way. The was flat decked back to the workshop and, ultimately, back to Volvo HQ in Auckland, where the problem was finally diagnosed.

A fastener on a major power feed cable was loose; ultimately it undid to point where a short-circuit occurred. Quite possibly it had been that way since the car’s birth. No matter how advanced the tech, there’ll always be a human element.