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Volvo V40 Cross Country gets the all-wheel drive it deserves

Want a rugged Volvo wagon? Gothenburg has two kinds to offer: there's the XC crossovers on the one hand and ruggedized wagons on the other. As we reported last month from the unveiling of the new XC90 in Sweden, Volvo plans on offering more Cross Country wagons in the future. But in the meantime, it has upgraded the existing V40 Cross Country with some key enhancements - not the least of which is the long-awaited addition of all-wheel drive.
Powertrain upgrades for Volvo's smallest soft-roader include the new T5 engine (a 1.7-liter turbo four producing 245 horsepower), an eight-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive. The new powertrain is not only more capable, but also more environmentally friendly than the old T5 it replaces.
The enhanced V40 Cross Country launches in Europe mid-fall before being rolled out in other markets in the following months, but unfortunately the United States is not among them as the V40 is not offered Stateside in any configuration, which is a shame.

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.

Everybody's doing flying cars, so why aren't we soaring over traffic already?

"Where's my flying car?" has been the meme for impending technology that never materializes since before there were memes. And the trough of disillusionment for vehicles that can take to sky continues to nosedive, despite a nonstop fascination with flying cars and a recent rash of announcements about the technology, particularly from traditional automakers. Earlier this month, Toyota applied for an eye-popping patent for a flying car that has wheels with spring-loaded pop-out helicopter rotors. The patent filing says the wheels/rotors would be electrically powered, while in on-land mode the vehicle would have differential steering like tracked vehicles such as tanks and bulldozers. At an airshow in July, Aston Martin unveiled its Volante Vision Concept, an autonomous hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle it developed with Rolls-Royce. Aston says the Volante can fly at top speeds of around 200 mph and bills it as a luxury car for the skies. Audi used the Geneva Motor Show in March to unveil a flying car concept called the Pop.Up Next it developed with Airbus and Italdesign. If the Pop.Up Next, an electric and autonomous quadcopter/city car combo, gets stuck in traffic, an app can be used to summon an Airbus-developed drone to pick up the passenger compartment pod, leaving the chassis behind. Audi said that the Pop.Up Next is a "flexible on-demand concept that could open up mobility in the third dimension to people in cities." But Audi also acknowledged that at this point it has no plans to develop it. The cash-stoked, skies-the-limit Silicon Valley tech crowd is also bullish on flying cars. The startup Kitty Hawk that's backed by Google co-founder Larry Page announced in June that it's taking pre-orders for its single-seat electric Flyer that's powered by 10 propellers and is capable of vertical takeoffs and landings. The current version can only fly up to 20 mph and 10 feet in the air and has a flight time of just 12 to 20 minutes on a full charge. The Flyer is considered a recreational vehicle, so doesn't require a pilot's license. Uber says it plans to launch its more ambitious Elevate program and UberAIR service in 2023. "Uber customers will be able to push a button and get a flight on-demand with uberAIR in Dallas, Los Angeles and a third international market," Uber Elevate promises on its website.