2008 Volvo C70 T5 Convertible 2-door 2.5l on 2040-cars

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Volvo C40 Luggage Test: How much cargo space?

The Volvo C40 is the chopped-roof "coupe" version of the Volvo XC40, albeit without the internal combustion powertrain options. It's Recharge or nothing. As an electric vehicle, the C40 (or EC40 as it's apparently being renamed) is quite agreeable, with ample range and performance, plus a refined driving experience indicative of a Volvo that is quite clearly more sophisticated than the Hyundais, Kias and Volkswagens of the world. The interior up front is highly functional, too, with clever storage and good tech. Oh, and the gray wool upholstery is just beautiful.  But good grief, is the rear visibility atrocious. The back window is comparable to a pillbox and the blind spot is enormous. Worse, the various cameras supposedly on board to counter those flaws are just not effective. The rearview camera is mounted so low that its field of view is poor. The rearview camera mirror is susceptible to water droplets and condensation, and worse, the mirror housing is effectively pointed at the ceiling. That ceiling is glass and there is no shade. Ergo, if the sun is behind you, the amount of glare on the mirror renders it unviewable. If the roof is covered in condensation and the sun is behind you, there might as well be a brick mounted to the ceiling.  OK, I've gone off the rails here, but I just had to get that off my chest. The XC40 Recharge (or EX40 as it'll be called in the future), didn't have that problem, and I'm sure this isn't exactly a spoiler, it has a more usable cargo area, too.  Just in case it's not obvious, the C40/EC40 and XC40/EX40 is on the right. I'm done doing that / business, so I'm just going to make this future-proof from here on out. Volvo's specs say the EC40 has 17.3 cubic-feet of cargo space and specifically indicates that includes the underfloor storage area. When seemingly using that same measurement, the EX40 has 20.4. Honestly, I have no idea how that equates to the typically reported cubic-foot volume number of other manufacturers, but as a point of reference to each other, I'm going with those figures.  Both have an underfloor storage area, including a lid that cleverly props itself up so you can divide the cargo area for the purposes of keeping smaller items in place. There's also two little tabs that stick up specifically intended to loop grocery bags onto.  Now, I wrote off this area in the XC40 luggage test since it wasn't big enough to hold the smallest (fancy) bag, shown above in blue.

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

Volvo XC40 and C40 electrics get new motors, more horsepower, longer range

Late last year came reports of improved versions of the Volvo XC40 Recharge and C40 Recharge for Europe. Configurators over the Atlantic showed there wouldn't just be new rear-wheel-drive models, but more battery, more range, and faster charging. The Swedes have finally published the official list of updates, the tweaks even better than the reportage and websites showed. First, the rumors are true, Volvo is back in the rear-driver game after 25 years on the sidelines. The automaker took the previous e-motors off the front axle, putting its in-house-developed, more powerful, and more efficient e-motor on the rear axle. This first use of the new e-motors bumps output from 228 horsepower to 235 horsepower in the RWD trims when combined with the 60-kWh standard range battery. That, plus cooling improvements for the pack, means the XC40 Recharge's range jumps from 425 kilometers on the WLTP cycle to 460 km (285 miles), the C40 Recharge's range going from 438 km to 476 km (296 miles). Plugged into a charger capable of at least 130 kW, refilling from 10% to 80% takes about 34 minutes.  We specified "standard range battery" because another new treat is a second RWD trim: Volvo will plug its 82-kWh battery into the powertrain for those willing to pay. But wait, there's more: The big pack powers an even juicier e-motor making 248 hp. The added gumption boosts range in the XC40 Recharge to 515 km (320 miles), in the C40 Recharge to 533 km (331 miles). And again, improved cooling permits uprated charging speed of 200 kW, cutting the run from 10% to 80% SOC to approximately 28 minutes. Dual-motor variants make the change to asymmetric output as revealed before, giving up two 201-hp e-motors for a new 156-hp motor on the front axle and that in-house 248 hp motor on the rear. In conjunction with better cooling, the XC40 Recharge Twin Motor climbs to 500 km (311 miles) of range on a charge, a 62-km hike, the C40 Recharge Twin Motor to 507 km (315 miles), a 56-km enhancement.  Marginal gains also come from a set of more aerodynamic 19-inch wheels.  The updated twin-motor siblings are expected to enter production in May, the single-motor versions in the fall. We only get the Twin Motor models here. If our variants reflected the same range extensions as in Europe, the 14% rise for the XC40 Recharge would give our car a 255-mile range, the C40 a 12% boost to 254 miles of range.