Volvo XC40 Recharge Single Motor review: Is the E-SUV with front-wheel drive enough for towing a trailer?

With the Volvo XC40 Recharge, Volvo is bringing its popular SUV into the new electric age. Can he convince in the single engine variant? We tested it for you.

The XC40 SUV from Volvo is very popular. We already had him in the last year Twin engine variant extensively tested. Therefore, in this test of the single motor variant, I will only go into the main differences. Volvo currently only offers two fully electric models: the XC40 SUV and the SUV coupe called C40. We have already tested both Volvos in the twin engine variant.

In this article, we only go into the biggest differences between the single and dual motor variants. You can find the detailed test of other properties of the Volvo XC40 in this article:

• Volvo XC40 Recharge (2022) on test: great car, electric car in need of improvement

tl;dr: Enough comfort and power for everyday use.

Since the XC40 Recharge is built very high, it drives like a typical SUV on the road. There is also no head-up display available in the configurator. On a flat road, the tires spin even at the slightest moment of acceleration. Mind you, this happens more often on wet roads than on dry roads. So if you're gentle on the accelerator, you shouldn't have any problems with it in everyday life.

Otherwise you should probably go for the twin engine variant. Nevertheless, trailers up to 1,5 tons can easily be towed with the front-wheel drive XC40 Recharge in everyday life.

Driving characteristics: SUV through and through

Anyone who thinks an SUV is easy to maneuver through corners has made the calculation without the XC40 single motor. Because it is really only intended for normal journeys. The "sporty steering feel" setting doesn't help either. Of course, this is also due to the overall height and possibly because it does not have all-wheel drive.

Nevertheless, we were able to cover longer distances quite comfortably and without difficulties. It is easy to drive even with a trailer. More on that later. In the Volvo XC40 Recharge Single Motor, an electric motor with an output of 170 kW / 231 hp works on the front axle. This is definitely not too little. He's also very good at going forward. You don't need more power in everyday life anyway, to be honest. The maximum torque is 330 Nm, which is also more than enough for an SUV of the size. The battery in the single motor model is 69 kWh. Only 67 kWh of this can be used, which is perfectly normal. Because these 67 kWh are enough for everyday journeys for approx. 340 to 370 km at winter temperatures of around 10 degrees.

Fast charging is also only possible with the XC40 Recharge Single at a maximum of 150 kW. It's worth mentioning, however, that we never saw this. Most of the time it peaked at 130 kW. Charging from 10 to 80 percent then took around 30 to 35 minutes. At least it held the peak for a relatively long time. There still doesn't seem to be any optimized battery preconditioning based on the current navigation route.

Trailer operation: Can mid-range e-cars now tow trailers?

The answer to this question: Yes, you can. The front-wheel drive Volvo XC40 Recharge could do this very well. Mind you, it can tow a trailer load of up to 1,5 tons when braked. And with temperatures below 10 degrees, we had a consumption of about 25 kWh per 100 km in city traffic. This is really good value for an electric car of this size with a trailer. So you can move it very efficiently. There is also a trailer view in the camera.

Picture: TechnikNews

Plug connection for the power supply and more, everything worked perfectly in our trailer test. The car also recognized that it was towing a trailer and informed us that various assistance systems were not available during this time. Such as the distance sensor and the blind spot warning in the mirror. Furthermore, the XC40 Recharge had no problems during the entire trailer operation and even pulled the completely full trailer without any effort. We were very surprised that the consumption was so low in comparison.

Beautiful electro Swede in everyday life

The Volvo XC40 Recharge once again demonstrated the strengths of the electric cars from Sweden in everyday use. It had absolutely no problems when towing a trailer, and even on the motorway with a trailer and a constant speed of 100 km/h, the fuel consumption was not really any higher than in city driving. However, Volvo can hopefully change a few things here with the facelift. Among other things, the problem with the spinning tires, which only happened to us with the front-wheel drive model from Sweden.

In the facelift, the XC40 Recharge will soon have a better charging performance and charging curve and even a rear-wheel drive instead of a drive at the front. The battery will probably grow too. Let's see how this one does then. Of course, we will keep you up to date with the Volvo electric cars. Because there will definitely be some interesting new models on the local market.