The New Volvo XC40 R Design Crystal White 21
The New Volvo XC40 R Design Crystal White w contrasting black roof 23
The New Volvo XC40 R Design 20
The New Volvo XC40 R Design Crystal White 22
The New Volvo XC40 Interior 15
Michael Taylor23 Sept 2017
NEWS

Volvo banking big on XC40 in Australia

Swedish brand to bring style and new tech to premium compact SUV fight

The booming small luxury SUV battle is about to get even hotter with Volvo packing a mountain of new technical and design ideas into its smallest SUV ever, the all-new XC40.

In a first for the Swedish brand, the XC40 has pushed Volvo’s brand down to fight against the BMW X1 and X3, the Audi Q2 and Q3, Mercedes-Benz’s GLA and Range Rover’s booming Evoque.

The first car to be built off Volvo’s all new Compact Modular Architecture (CMA), it sits beneath the successful XC60 and XC90 models, but more of a “cousin rather than a sibling,” according Volvo’s vice-president of design, Robin Page.

Despite the widespread hullaballoo surrounding Volvo’s recent announcement of its future electrified strategy for 2021, the XC40 will only launch with four-cylinder turbo-diesel and four-cylinder turbo-petrol power, and only in all-wheel drive.

The New Volvo XC40 R Design 20

The XC40 will have to wait for electrification, even though Volvo’s New Car Vehicle Line Director for both the V40 and the XC40, Alexander Petrofski, insists it is pre-engineered for both battery-electric power and a plug-in hybrid system.

It is also pre-engineered for a 48-volt mild-hybrid system for its petrol powerplant, but it’s not getting it just yet.

It will also be the first Volvo to use the brand’s new 1.5-litre, three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, which will be used in concert with the hybrid system.

And, to keep some powder dry for later in the fight, it’s also pre-engineered for front-wheel drive.

The New Volvo XC40 R Design Crystal White 22

“The XC40 is our first entry in the small SUV segment, broadening the appeal of the Volvo brand and moving it in a new direction,” said Håkan Samuelsson, Volvo president and CEO.

“It represents a fresh, creative and distinctive new member of the Volvo line-up. So it only feels natural to reveal the XC40 here in Milan, a buzzing European hotspot for fashion, art, design and lifestyle.”

Due in Australia in April or May next year, it will slot into the fastest growing segment of the car market. Petrofski expects Australia to contribute 4000 XC40 sales a year, which could cause an intake of breath at the local Volvo HQ.

The New Volvo XC40 Interior 11

The leader in the compact segment, the BMW X1, has found 2374 buyers so far this year, so 4000 cars a year would make the XC40 an instant market leader, and by some margin.

“We have high expectations from Australia. Australia will be a big market for us. Up to 4000 cars a year,” he said.

There’s no denying the car is a critical piece in hitting Volvo’s target of almost doubling world sales to 800,000 cars by 2020, but Volvo Car Australia marketing boss, Oliver Peagam, was quick to damp down the sales expectations.

While insisting Volvo didn’t yet have solid local pricing for the XC40, Peagam instead suggested the XC40 models would be within the ballpark pricing of their German and British rivals, without dipping beneath the $40,000 barrier. But it won’t stop there.

“There’s always an opportunity to pull people up from some of those cheaper brands -- a [Mazda] CX-3, [Hyundai] Tucson or a [Volkswagen] Tiguan or something like that,” Peagam said.

The New Volvo XC40 Interior 15

Besides joining a new segment, it will also be the first Volvo to offer the inductive smartphone chargers the Germans have been offering for years and the first to offer a family and friends car-sharing system.

It’s also crammed with safety features, including City Safe crash prevention that helps at up to 60km/h, Run-Off Road assist to keep the car within its lane and Pilot Assist up to Level 2 self-driving in heavy traffic.

It also boasts a Cross Traffic Alert to autonomously brake the car to defend against collisions with unseen cars, bikes or pedestrians when reversing out of car parks.

Petrofski-bills it as a world first, though Volkswagen debuted similar technology on the facelift of the last-generation Polo in 2014.

The New Volvo XC40 R Design Crystal White w contrasting black roof 23

The T5 petrol version will be the entry-level car initially and also the lightest, at 1684kg.

The 1969cc four-cylinder turbo motor will deliver 182kW of power at 5500rpm, while its 350Nm torque peak begins at 1800rpm and begins to trail off beyond 4800rpm.

Volvo claims the T5 is good for 230km/h at its top end, whipping through to 100km/h in only 6.5 seconds.

It also consumes between 8.3 and 9.0L/100km on the new WLTP real-world fuel economy test, which equates to between 189 and 205g/km of CO2.

Over in diesel land, the D4 uses the same 1969cc capacity, with the same 82mm x 93.2mm bore and stroke measurements as the T5 petrol motor, but uses two turbochargers and boosts the compression ratio from 10.8:1 up to 15.8:1.

The New Volvo XC40 Wireless phone charging

It brings with it more torque, earlier than the T5, with 400Nm available from 1750rpm to 2500, and tops out with 140kW of power at 4000rpm, though the heavier engine pushes the weight up to 1733kg.

Volvo claims it will send the small crossover to 100km/h in 7.9 seconds on its way to a 210km/h top speed. Its WLTP figure is between 6.3 and 7.0L/100km, or 168-185g/km of CO2.

Peagam said the engine sales mix would be more heavily biased towards petrol than other models in Australia’s Volvo SUV range.

“With that segment, it’s probably not as sensitive to diesel as it is with the larger SUVs, so maybe it’s closer to a 50:50 split with this car, but that’s largely a guess at this stage,” he said.

At 4425mm long, the XC40 sits on a 2034mm wheelbase and uses an eight-speed Aisen-Warner automatic transmission on both powertrain variants, plus a variable centre differential.

The New Volvo XC40 Interior 14

Volvo claims 450mm of wading depth and 211mm of ground clearance to justify its ‘SUV’ status, though its 54-litre fuel tank would be a limiting factor in real off-road work.

It rides on 19-inch tyres, attached to a MacPherson strut front suspension and a multi-link rear-end, though an R specification takes the wheels up to 20 inches.

Its interior is also radically different to anything in the segment, as you’d expect from a design team lead by Robin Page, who was in charge of the XC90’s interior design program.

There is an enormous amount of storage in the cabin and moving the bass speakers into the dashboard has freed up a huge amount of space in the door pockets, which can swallow large bottles and still have room for tablets or even computers and the collected set of the Lord of the Rings.

The New Volvo XC40 Interior 16

There are fold-out hooks alongside the transmission tunnel, a removable rubbish bin in the centre console and a big storage area beneath the armrest.

It’s highlighted by air vents that are uniquely and unashamedly vertical, a touch-screen set-up for the combined 9.0-inch infotainment and navigation screen and a feeling of space that’s not like anything else in the class.

Australian XC40s will be built in Ghent, Belgium, rather than the Luqiao, China, plant that will service the world’s largest car market.

Though it was never tested or developed in Australia, Petrofski insists the XC40’s developers and planners visited up to 250 homes in the US, UK, Sweden, China and Germany to see how people used cars in the XC40’s segment, way back in 2013.

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Written byMichael Taylor
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