2019 Volvo XC40 vs 2021

What's the difference?

The XC40 Inscription T4 is beautifully designed while also being spacious and practical – yep almost perfect form and function. Then there’s the exceptional safety systems, but a lack of standard adaptive cruise control or auto parking is odd. That also affects the driving experience, which while good isn’t as refined as its stylish design may suggest.

The Volvo XC40 Recharge packages up the kinds of things I reckon Volvo buyers want - style, safety and advanced technology. The XC40's thrifty fuel use coupled with a useful if not astonishing EV range means you can run this car almost literally on the smell of an oily rag if you're a suburban or urban dweller.

It also offers the flexibility to deliver a drive between our capitals without any of the nail-biting range anxiety so many Australians claim to have, and that is preventing them from buying an EV.

While it's isn't cheap, neither is progress. But at least you're getting a well-equipped, awesome-looking and fun-to-drive SUV with buckets of space and an attractive badge.

Nearly everything about the design of the Volvo XC40 is interesting: from the way the bonnet sits flat and high, then leads to that sub nose with its modern grille, to the way the back door panel kicks up sharply to meet the rear pillar that’s hugged by long, angular tail-lights flanking a cleanly designed tailgate. It’s Volvo’s cool, minimalist design in a little SUV package.

And the exterior dimensions show just how little the XC40 is at 4.4m long, about 1.6m tall and 2.0m wide (with the mirrors out). How does that affect space inside? We’ll get to that below in the practicality section.

As far as the design inside goes Volvo minimalism is present throughout the cabin. This cockpit has a stylish simplicity, with a high-quality feel to the materials and excellent fit and finish.

The Inscription comes with pale ‘Drift Wood’ in-lays on the dash and doors – it’s a light coloured, rough feeling wood, see the interior images for yourself. There’s a 'crystal' gear knob, plush carpet trim on the doors, charcoal leather seats and a leather-trimmed steering wheel, too.

You can spot an Inscription from the outside by its 19-inch 'Double Spoke Black Diamond Cut' alloy wheels – again, check these out in the exterior images. While the R-Design grade above it has a two-tone colour scheme with a black roof, the Inscription comes standard as all one colour.

The hue of my test car was 'Luminous Sand Metallic' which is the most stunning shade from a limited choice of colours that includes 'Pine Grey Metallic', 'Denim Blue Metallic', 'Maple Brown Metallic', 'Bright Silver Metallic' and 'Crystal White Pearl'.

Compared to rivals such as the BMW X2, Audi Q2 and Jaguar E-Pace I think the XC40 is arguably the best looking of the bunch.

I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I’m giving the XC40 a perfect 10 because as far as small SUVs go right now, they don’t get better looking or as bravely unique as this inside and out.

The XC40 backed up the XC90's design direction, and, like its big brother, it's a belter. The segment has plenty of outstanding designs (that's what happens when everyone gets in on the same game), but the XC40 is a proper looker. From the Hammer of Thor headlights through to the cool concave grille, the upright stance, blacked-out roof and C-pillar, and those signature stacked taillights it's...well, the whole thing is much cooler than it probably should be.

That's not a backhander about Volvo styling - the company has been doing cool for almost 20 years - but the vaguely Minecraft aesthetic shouldn't work, but it does.

The cabin is very nice, too, but in a more conventional way. It's not as bang-up-to-date as a newer German cabin, but then you're not paying another twenty grand for the privilege. The vertical screen works in its environment, the digital dashboard has a high-tech feel and the materials are very pleasant to look at and touch.

The XC40 is small at just 4.4m long and 2.0m wide, but space inside is outstanding for storage and people room.

Up front there’s plenty of room for me at 191cm tall to sit under the steering wheel with stacks of space in the footwell and great head-, shoulder- and elbow room.

Room in the back is also great – I can sit behind my driving position with more than a 20mm of space between my knees and the seatback, while headroom is plentiful, too.

Sitting back there I’m also happy to report that vision isn’t obstructed by the ‘kick-up’ in the door panel as it occurs just behind the back-seat passenger’s shoulder. I also had my four-year old son sitting in the back in his child seat and his visibility wasn’t affected.

Cabin storage is clever and makes use of the available space in the XC40 well.

There are giant bottle holders in the front doors and smaller ones in the rears,  there also four cupholders – two in the cockpit and another in the fold down armrest in the back.

The centre console bin is big and even has a small net for business cards or coins, then there’s the little trap door hidey hole in front of it and the giant area under the dash which also houses the wireless charging pad, 12-volt outlet and USB port. There’s a drawer under the driver’s seat, too.

Rear passengers have seat back net pockets, a USB charging port and directional air vents.

How big is the XC40’s boot? The cargo capacity is 460 litres which is big for an SUV that’s only 4.4m long.

Rear seat passengers enjoy uncommonly comfortable seats with a pretty serious set of headrests, part of the safety package. The optional "electric folding" mechanism means that if you're on your own in the car, you can press a button and they fall forward out of your vision. It's really quite handy, and for a couple of hundred bucks, and it saves a bit of hassle.

There is tons of head and legroom, too, and rear seat passengers score their own air vents.

The boot starts at a handy-if-not-spectacular 460 litres, rising to 1336 litres with the seats folded down. Some of the boot space is nibbled away by the bag holding the charger you use in a standard 240V domestic point, but not hugely so. 

There are two pairs of cupholders, one in the front next to the dainty little shifter and two in the rear armrest, which is unusually sturdy. Each door will hold a bottle, too, for a maximum of four.

While you can a have an XC40 for just under $47,000 (before on-roads), the Recharge asks $64,990 before options and on-roads.

You get 20-inch alloy wheels, a 14-speaker Harmon Kardon stereo, sat nav, leather seats, power front seats, R-Design bits and pieces (like the steering wheel), dual-zone climate control with air cleaning system, panoramic sunroof, auto LED headlights, auto high beam, wireless phone charging, headlight washers, auto wipers, keyless entry and start and a space-saver spare.

The 9.0-inch, portrait-oriented touchscreen runs a beefy Harmon Kardon 14-speaker stereo and has DAB, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It's a slightly confusing system - if you want to change something about the car, it can be a bit laborious getting from the main system back to CarPlay. I'm sure you'd get used to it, but apart from that, the hardware is quick, the menus comprehensible (for the most part) and the side-swiping action quite familiar.

Our test car had metallic paint ($1150), a Versatility Pack (load protection net, power folding headrests - $230), Climate Pack (heated front seats, windscreen washers and steering wheel - $700), around-view camera ($990 - that stings), tinted rear windows ($700), heated rear seats ($350) and auto parking ($650), taking the total to $69,760. Apart from the one that stung, most of these prices are relatively reasonable.

The XC40 Inscription has what Volvo calls its 'T4' turbo-petrol engine with all-wheel drive (AWD).

That’s your only choice for this grade. If you’d prefer a front-wheel drive (FWD) version you’ll need to step down to the Momentum grade which has the same 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine with identical outputs of 140kW/300Nm.

You’ll use more fuel with AWD, and to find out how much more skip to the section below on economy.

The T4 is smooth, quiet and had enough grunt to get up and move quickly when I needed to overtake or merge. There's a small amount of turbo lag, but that’s not a deal breaker.

'Dynamic' mode (the sport setting) sharpens the throttle response and gear shifts.

The eight-speed automatic transmission is smooth, but a little slow in the normal setting and a lack of paddle shifters is disappointing.

As this is a plug-in hybrid, things are a mite more complex than a standard XC40. The internal combustion engine, which both drives the wheels and can charge the batteries, is a 1.5-litre, three-cylinder turbo unit with 132kW and 265Nm, both pretty good figures on their own. 

Plugged into that is a 60kW/160Nm electric motor which can drive the car all on its lonesome or in combination with the engine.

Making sure the power gets to the front wheels is a seven-speed twin-clutch automatic and the XC40 Recharge will go from rest to 100km/h in a handy 7.4 seconds - about a second slower than the quickest petrol-only model.

The XC40's charge cable plugs into a charging point on the front left of the car between the wheel and the front door. Using the supplied charger, you'll be waiting around six hours for a from-dead charge. If you can find a fast-charger, it will step down to the XC40's throughput and be done in two and a half hours.

About that fuel economy – by choosing the Inscription T4 with its AWD you won’t use much more fuel than the FWD with the same engine.

Volvo officially says the XC40 Inscription T4's mileage over a combination of open and urban roads is 7.4L/100km (the T4 with FWD is 7.2L/100km).

After 175km of peak hour traffic and my test route through country roads I’d used 21.24 litres, which works out to be 12.14L/100km. Motorway kays would bring that number down a stack further.

Volvo's government-approved ADR testing yielded a slightly silly 2.2L/100km (the Euro-focussed WLTP comes in at 2.0L/100km). This sort of figure is common with PHEVs as the testing cycle is short and not really designed for advanced drivetrains.

Having said that, and throwing out my usual 30 per cent rule (I reckon adding 30 per cent to a fuel figure is probably what you'll get in the real world on a "normal" car), the 5.4L/100km I got during a week's driving is pretty reasonable given the point I was intending to use to charge it didn't work. 

The week I spent with it included two separate 30km EV-only runs across the city where the petrol motor kept to itself the whole time, and I still had about six-kilometres of range left. The 10.7kWh battery has a claimed range of 46km so given a good chunk of that running was in 80km/ zones, that's pretty good going.

The XC40 Inscription T4 feels good to drive. By that I mean, the steering is light, smooth and direct, with a quiet engine that has acceptable shove along with a comfortable and serene cabin.

These are the boxes that pretty much get ticked in every new Volvo I’ve driven in the past few years.

If you’re after a sportier XC40 then skip the Inscription and head straight to the R-Design with its more powerful 'T5' engine and paddle shifters.

The T4 in the Inscription is fine, but with 140kW its acceleration isn’t mind blowing (0-100km/h in 8.5s) and I found the turbo lag to be frustrating at times.

Built more for comfort than handling the XC40 is easy to pilot, but that soft suspension, short wheelbase (no doubt) and high centre of mass also means speed bumps and pot holes cause a bit of bounce and body wobble at slow speeds over Sydney’s horrendous roads. There were times the family was jiggled cocktail-shaker style.

I was hoping for a better driving experience from the XC40 Inscription T4. It’s a small and relatively affordable SUV (compared to other Volvos), but can’t match the on-road refinement of its bigger siblings.

Then there’s the portrait screen which looks good and removes many of the buttons from the dashboard, but I found it difficult and distracting to use while driving. It’s not intuitive, the layout is book-like and too wordy for quick selections.

There were times I needed to pull over just so that I could work out how to do what should be simple things – like how to turn the stop-start fuel saving system off. Tesla has nailed the large portrait screen – Volvo take note.

Also, adaptive cruise control isn’t a standard feature. Our test car had it optionally fitted but I couldn’t help but fume about that.

Volvo is at the forefront of driving tech like this and making people pay more seems to be at odds with the portrayed ethos of the company.

So, it’s not quite an eight out of 10 here – I feel the driving experience is good but not outstanding.

The XC40 Recharge is a delight around town. I'm a big fan of PHEVs (try saying that ten times quickly) because they're a good halfway house between a full BEV, both on price and for dealing with range anxiety (quick reminder, there will likely be a full EV version of the XC40 here by year's end). 

It's a well-beaten statistic, but most Australians, all being equal, travel an average of 30-40km per day. Which means that despite me saying 2.2L/100km isn't really accurate, if you're the kind of person who buys this car for the school run or short commute, you'll probably never have to use the petrol engine until you decide to get a bit frisky on the accelerator or, like I did, you take it on a highway run down to the NSW South Coast.

The XC40 Recharge will always use its electric motor, with the software keeping a little bit of charge in hand for stepping off at the lights, which is the biggest contributor to fuel usage. Getting 1700kg-plus of car moving requires a lot of energy.

If you need it, the XC40 can get moving very quickly, and in the urban cut and thrust, the combination of instant electric torque and a very effective turbo three-cylinder means breaking into traffic is a doddle. While the 0-100km/h is quick enough, it's quite lively from 0-60km/h, meaning far fewer of those clench-and-punch-it moments when breaking into moving traffic than some other mid-sized SUVs.

And if you keep it charged - easy enough if you have access to a power point and take the view that each night you charge it the same way you charge your phone - you'll spend the vast amount of your time driving in EV-only mode, which is every relaxing and near silent. Or would be if the 20-inch wheels weren't wrapped in Pirelli P-Zero tyres, but even then they're not too noisy.

It's also very easy to live with, easy to park (especially with the rather expensive 360-degree camera) and the vision out is mostly good, apart from over your left shoulder where the rear quarter window is slashed in twain by a stylish application of the set square. The various safety systems ensure it isn't an issue, however.

Being a Volvo, it's laden with safety gear - and you even get a list on the dashboard screen every time you start up, which I think is quite cute.

Along with the usual seven airbags, ABS, and stability and traction controls, the XC40 also has forward AEB (with pedestrian, vehicle, large animal and cyclist detection, and which operates at high and low speed), lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring and reverse cross-traffic alert.

You also get two ISOFIX points and three top-tether anchors. ANCAP last tested the XC40 in July 2018 and awarded it five stars.

The XC40 is covered by Volvo’s three-year/unlimited kilometre warranty.

Servicing is recommended every 15,000km or 12 months.

Two servicing plans are available for the XC40. The basic 'Smart Care' plan costs $2165 for three years/45,000km, $3320 for four years/60,000km or $4230 for five years/75,000km.

Volvo throws in a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, which is unusual in the Euro segment. You can also pre-pay your servicing with a plan, covering three-years/45,000km for $1595. Volvo expects to see you once every 12 months or 15,000km.