Volvo goes dark (and FAST) with this upscale iteration of their mid-sized SUV.
Some cars really surprise you. I didn’t expect to love the new Volvo XC60 Recharge in Black Edition trim as much as I did. In the past, I’ve had a blast tooling around Malibu in the V60 wagon, and Volvo’s full-sized XC90 SUV is one I’d love to own after my week-long test drive. But the XC60 had never been on my radar until I got the chance to take it on a summer road trip from Charleston to the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to drop my daughter off for her first-ever sleep-away camp session for three weeks. I wanted to make the trip in a Volvo because my daughter is a fourth-generation camper at her destination, and if there’s any car that has a legacy in my family, it’s a Volvo.
I grew up riding in the back seats of Volvos in the boxy years of the 1980s. First it was a red Volvo wagon, then a succession of sedans. My dad was in the advertising business, and he did some work for the local Volvo dealership. But it was more than a simple arrangement of convenience. I think he decided that Volvo was on-brand for his life. The character Michael Steadman (played by Ken Olin) in the 1980s television series Thirty-Something was also an ad man.
He drove a classic Volvo P1800, and I think my father saw himself as being cut from the same cloth. He also used to say that he didn’t need to watch the TV show because he was living it. As a boy, I remember staring out the front windows of our house at the street, on the many late nights he worked, scanning passing cars for the square headlights that let me know it was him. Years later when I got my first car, just before my senior year of college, it was a Volvo S70 sedan that I drove for a decade.
The North Carolina summer camp where we were headed was where my mom went as a girl. It’s also where my dad would join me for a father-son hike at the end of every summer. Something about starting that cycle again for my own child, in a Volvo, just felt right. But this is not my father’s Volvo. In fact, it’s fast as hell. A lot has changed in cars over the past four decades, and we were in for a treat in the 500-mile round-trip journey from Low Country to high country and back.
Experience & Performance
I think my wife put it best after she took a turn behind the wheel and called it a “therapeutic” thing to drive. It brought things out of her. It indulged a desire for speed and power, and it just felt so good to drive. Couple that with the $3,200 add-on Bowers & Wilkins sound system, and you’ve got a full sensory experience that turns an otherwise monotonous drive into an extended release of endorphins.
The balance of power, weight, and agility under your control feels like a perfectly balanced knife in the hand. In the narrow streets of Charleston, it was easy backing onto our busy downtown street, easy to parallel park, and yet tall enough for visibility and for navigating the potholes and cobblestones.
On the freeway, it scalpels the lanes at the speed of your intentions. This is because the handoff between the electric power and the gas power is so smooth. Even if the battery has only a little power in it, it’s enough for a boost at low RPMs and a seamless progression of torque from a dead stop to freeway speeds.
The XC60 Recharge T8 has a direct-injected 2.0-liter turbo gas engine that produces 312-horsepower, and it’s paired with a 143-hpr electric motor. Combined, that’s 455-horsepower and 523 pound-feet of torque. It’s hard to convey how specs like this come together with all the other moving parts to create the feel of driving a certain vehicle. In this case, it all just comes together better than you could possibly expect.
To charge the electric motor, you’ve got options. You can plug it in to charge in a few hours, or you can set the engine on Charge Mode, and it will gradually recharge over time from braking. You can also set it to electric-only if you’ve got a full charge and don’t want to use gas. Or, you can let it do its thing, and it will still self-charge enough to still have enough juice for those zero-to-whatever transitions. When on a freeway in cruise control, I found it useful to set it on Charge Mode and build up a little surplus. Overall, I averaged a little less than the combined 28 mpg on the sticker. I didn’t mind. I haven’t had this much fun driving an SUV in a long time.
Design & Interior
On the outside, the Black Edition trim looks fantastic. The incognito blackout trim paired with black 21-inch wheels give it a sleek muscularity that you could put up against any German SUV of its ilk. Inside, the cockpit doesn’t try to overimpress—it’s just very nice. No big swings, but then again, no big misses. The touchscreen seems a tad small compared to those in modern vehicles with dashboard-dominating infotainment, but all the better to help you focus on the driving.
The massaging leather seats were coddling after a few hours on the road, while the Swedish Orrefors crystal shifter imparts classiness and feels good in the hand. As a fan of Bowers & Wilkins headphones, the audio system made me want to just listen and drive—not fiddle with things on the dash. In the mountains, the panoramic moon roof became a green ceiling.
The XC60 great cargo capacity was the second biggest surprise after the performance. We had an OEM cargo box on the roof, but the back was so spacious that we could have done without it—even with luggage for four that included a massive camp trunk.
Final Thoughts
My week with this Volvo was not as much a test drive as it was a nod to family tradition. What our parents crave for us, and what I crave for my kids, is a sense of progress and improvement over time. Compared with my father’s square Volvos of the 1980s, this thing is a tear-drop rocket ship. Even better, my daughter is already proving herself to be a far better camper than I was. As tested: $77,000
