Volvo’s first ever electric car, the XC40 Recharge Pure Electric, has finally gone on sale in Malaysia. The locally assembled crossover is available in a single high-spec P8 AWD flavour, and it’s priced at RM262,460 (inclusive of the sales and services tax exemption). Deliveries will begin later this month.
At that price, the XC40 EV undercuts the CBU Mercedes-Benz EQA 250 AMG Line by RM16k, yet packs more performance and safety features. The Volvo has two electric motors – one on each axle – for a combined total of 408 PS and 660 Nm, allowing it to do the century sprint in 4.9 seconds. It is fast.
On this half-day drive, we drove quite spiritedly from The Club Saujana to Janda Baik and back, a round trip that saw us cover a distance of just over 200 km. As seen in this video, we started out with a battery charge level of 95%, but went down to 35% at the end of our journey.
The 78 kWh lithium-ion battery does seem capable of delivering over 400 km of range on a full charge, so if you plan your trips right, you can easily cover the west coast. The car supports a maximum AC charge rate of 11 kW (Type 2 connection; cable is supplied with the car). At this rate, it takes 7.5 hours (or 50 to 60 km per hour) to fully charge the battery.
For DC charging, the maximum 150 kW (CCS2 interface) will juice up the battery from 0% to an 80% state-of-charge in 33 minutes. You may refer to the list of DC charging stations for your future commutes.
For those interested, there are five colours to choose from – Crystal White Pearl, Denim Blue Metallic, Black Stone (solid paint), Sage Green Metallic, and Glacier Silver Metallic. You may read our review to see what we think of the electric crossover, or browse CarBase.my to see its spec breakdown in greater detail.
Wow, the complete switch off upon exit thingy is a gigantic deal breaker, I cannot fathom a single positive use for it. What was the thinking?
True. This should be addressed in a over the air update.
Smarter to wait for Perodua EV..
Right! Is it 2040 or 2050 then?
King of rebadge. No thanks.
For me Its a good thing. I like that manufacturer trying to rethink for the better. Now that there is no engine to turn off, you don’t need switches anymore. Instead they should put a setting to tell the car why it should keep the power on if there’s nobody inside.
How does the auto cruise work? Can your hand off the stereng wheel ?
Why do people assume assisted driving mode is self driving? Same idiots like that sinkie Tesla owner. Come on lah, even aircraft autopilot mode requires pilot hand on controls, it does not mean the pilots can play chess while on flight.
Time to do the cost comparison between EVs like how PT team normally does with vehicles from the same class. Manufacturers touting costs savings all the time but how much can we really save over the years? Then there’s that battery cost that awaits every owner the moment the battery warranty is over.
Most of the manufacturers offer 7 to 8 year warranty on the batteries… most owners would have changed cars by then, so battery cost issue is mainly for second-hand EV buyers later on… but even this is not really an issue as even 1st gen EVs have proven to have batteries that last over 10 years (Nissan Leaf, earlier Teslas, etc etc)
Whenever people talk and promote EV, they always never talk about the battery costing. Why lar.
Maybe most people that buy this car will be driving the car within the 8 years warranty period and change to a new one before the warranty over
Bocz its costs almost half of a car price.
Massive value proposition from volvo. Trumps the German on power and price. Can’t wait for the C40 though or even better XC60 EV.