Volvo’s XC90 Twin Engine has recorded CO₂ levels of 49g/km, making the vehicle, its makers claim the world’s most powerful and cleanest SUV.
The improvement over earlier announced figures was achieved thanks to the continuous innovation cycle at the Swedish company. The result of further tuning is a drop of 10g/km from the vehicle’s initial prognosis, for up to 2.1 l/100km (134.5mpg) fuel economy, while also adding horsepower.
“We have been working hard to earn our competitive edge and to give our customers the ultimate combination of performance and low fuel consumption,” says Peter Mertens, senior vice president of research and development at Volvo Car Group.
“Our Twin Engine technology has enabled us to build on our heritage of efficient powertrain development in a completely new way. Thanks to our new scalable product architecture, and our world class four-cylinder engines, we have a clear and leading position.”
The XC90 T8 delivers 41.8km of pure electric range, 0-100km/h in 5.6 seconds, and combined power of 412ps and 640Nm.
The vehicle has five different driving modes. The default setting is Hybrid mode, in which the car automatically alternates between drawing power from the 2-liter, 4-cylinder Drive-E engine and the electric motor to deliver the best overall fuel consumption.
In Pure Electric mode, when fully-charged, the high-voltage battery serves as the car’s sole energy source, powering the electric motor over the rear axle. The XC90 T8 has a range of up to 41.8km using just electricity, which covers the total distance many people drive in one day. The regenerative braking system makes the vehicle efficient in the stop-and-go traffic of city environments, and if more power is needed, the Drive-E combustion engine starts up automatically.
In Power mode, drivers get the combined performance of the combustion engine and the electric motor. On start-up, the SUV takes advantage of the electric motor’s response and instant torque curve, while the combustion engine gets up to speed. This combination offers better torque at lower revs, equivalent to that of a large displacement engine.
AWD mode offers constant all-wheel drive on demand. The advantage of being able to select AWD manually is that the driver can use it when needed, or choose to save energy for later.
If the battery is charged, Save mode allows the driver to ‘freeze’ the battery level and save it for later use with Pure Electric drive. On the other hand, if the battery is low, the driver can use the combustion engine to charge the battery to a certain level for later use with Pure Electric drive.
May 7, 2015