 You know Volvo, they sell bricks that are uncompromisingly safe, but they have a bit of a problem. Almost all cars are safe now. Fortunately, Volvo is synonymous with something else, sleeper, and given the XC40 recharge has over 400 horsepower and three and a half civics of torque, this thing's a certified sleeper. Unfortunately this thing's not just fast. With an infotainment designed by Google and a commitment to no-nonsense, unlike other EVs, this thing's really nice to live with. Just like it's nice to live with our sponsor, CableMod. CableMod allows you to personalize the look of your PC with custom-colored sleeved cables. Try out their configurator and build your cables exactly how you want them with a realistic cable preview. Check it out at the link below. Twelve years ago, Volvo was in a tough spot with Ford nearly running them into the ground. Since being acquired by Chinese car manufacturer Geely in 2010 for a fraction of what Ford paid, things have been looking up. Geely was able to turn around the company with a devious plan Ford never could have dreamt of, give Volvo money and full autonomy. The focus now is on beating the Germans with Scandinavian simplicity and the sales numbers show the plan has been working. Now Volvo is aggressively investing in electric vehicles with all their models planned to be fully electric by 2030. So how good is their first entry? From the outside, I think the XC40 recharge looks great. Sometimes when a car goes from gas to electric, it ends up looking like a fish with its face smushed against a glass pane. Volvo has shown us that the grille delete doesn't have to look terrible. Just take it in for a second. It's pretty and you don't have to assemble it. Given the marketing photos, you might think there is a generous frunk but uh… yeah not exactly. There's space for a charging cable and not much more but there's a very Volvo reason for why the frunk sucks. Safety. With the removal of the engine and addition of a couple thousand pounds, they needed to put a massive reinforcement structure under here to improve safety and chassis rigidity. But yeah, less of a frunk and more of a first. The interior is simple. It feels nice although not over the top luxurious. If you have Louis Vuitton earbuds, it might be a bit too plain but I'm a fan. The suede and vegan leather seats are extremely comfortable and the start button is below my butt so let's give it a go. Flooring it not only sends you back in the seat but the whole thing sits down, just planting the rear tires as the fronts scramble for traction. It's uncanny how this can just put down power no matter the conditions. We're on winters and in the wet it still can do like 4.9 seconds 0-60 which is the same as the Model Y. And other publications have measured 4.2 seconds 0-60 which is crazy given how much this thing weighs. The way it silently accelerates allows you to be a BMW driver, chopping commuters at lights and getting into those tight spots without feeling like one. Although it does get pretty mad when you don't use your turn signal. There are two options for the go pedal, standard and one pedal. Standard acts pretty much like an automatic transmission in an SUV. You let off the gas, it doesn't immediately slow down and you have to hit the brakes to stop. I think it kind of sucks. It has really aggressive creep that makes it kind of hard to stop smoothly. That was pretty good though. And you have to hold the brake because well it doesn't have brake hold. I suspect most people will just settle on one pedal mode. If you've never driven an EV before it will take a day or so to get used to but it is really worth it. It makes it so that when you get off the gas it uses regenerative braking to slow you down instead of you having to hit the brake pedal. It can increase your range, allows me to drive smoother and it also allows you to have more fun. In a corner you can just with your right foot change the balance from the front to the rear and really kind of feel what the car is doing. Or if you're me it makes it way easier to be an idiot. Ha ha! Unfortunately there is no way to disable traction control although like I get it you could definitely just do a comically large skid straight into a rollover if they allowed you to disable it. But I really did not expect to have this much fun in a crossover SUV that's not even advertised as sporty. If you really want to get into it you can kind of seesaw your way through corners you know. Going from understeer from overloaded front tires to you know you punch it and then you get understeer from not enough weight on the front tires. It is without a doubt slower than the Model Y in corners but I'm leaving the end of the corner with a big grin on my face instead of just cursing the electronics. Ah! Mmm! Ah jeez that guy. Sounds so good though. Our freshly minted Volvo fanboy over there he's glossing over quite a few things. Give me the keys. Like see this here? You'd think it's some nice felt or soft material but it's just floor liner. You know the stuff they use to line floors? And for how well thought out the interior is there are some comical oversights. I mean look there is loads of storage space. We've got a laptop holder, a tissue holder, trash bin, cable holder, phone charger, purse hook. Where do I put my sunglasses? They're the one thing I want to have safe dedicated storage for. Not to mention the fancy Harman Garden sound system seems like it was tuned by a horny teenager that just discovered bass. Even after turning the subwoofer to its absolute minimum it's still a bit much for my taste. Once you start driving. This thing hauls ass for something this size. Mind you the steering is not quite up to the same level. Although this is far from the worst electric steering setup I've ever felt it's got this terrible self centering that dominates the first one eighth of a turn or so. Like look turning, turning, let go and it goes straight immediately. It's almost like the car has 12 degrees of caster or something. Past a certain point the self centering kind of starts to chill out so determining whether it's understeer or just the weird tuning is kind of difficult. It's just not confidence inspiring. In fairness though I highly doubt the average XC40 driver is going to be too concerned about the subpar handling even if it makes dodging pot holes or going around a left lane hog kind of sketchy. What they might be concerned about is the ride quality which is a bit of a sore spot here. Even after accounting for the winter tires you can tell the dampers in this car were not designed for this much weight. At low speeds the suspension is kind of busy and at high speeds. Let's go. Ah they're just kind of floaty. It feels like a truck with a towing package but with nothing to tow. Pot holes or bumps in the road make the entire car audibly shudder and when you punch it you can see how hard she tilts. Adjustable electronic dampers would have gone a long way to help alleviate these problems but those are typically reserved for cars in a higher price bracket than this. So you hate it. Well not exactly. Don't get me wrong there's a lot to like here. The panoramic roof opens like a normal sunroof, the on-wiper washer fluid is great and you can even fit real human adults in the rear seats. The trunk which can be opened with a foot opens and closes quickly revealing more than enough space for a hockey bag or maybe even four. And for trips to the grocery store the floor folds up to create a shelf for your bags, the cargo cover can even be stored below it. The XC40 honestly could be a perfect car for a lot of people, it's just not for me. Realistically for car enthusiasts like us the Polestar 2 is what we should be driving. Review coming soon by the way, get subscribed it's gonna be sick. The thing that will have you coming back to the XC40 Recharge is the simplicity and a large portion of that is thanks to Google. In here we have Android Automotive, different than Android Auto and it is easily the best infotainment currently in cars. The past 10 years or so automakers have struggled to figure out how to integrate your phone with the car and here you just don't need the phone. Hop onto the Play Store, download the app that you want and bippity bop you can run it straight through the interface. Like look, there's Spotify. Having instant access to my music and podcasts through the infotainment screen has been awesome and Google Assistant makes things like requesting guidance or texting super easy. There are some notable emissions like Audible and Apple Music aren't on it yet but this is very early days and the number of apps is rapidly increasing. In some parts of the world they already have YouTube and Netflix running on this screen. Awesome for when you're stuck charging and I can't wait for it to arrive here. Overall the system has been stable and has a lot of nice features. Look at the car's settings can be changed based off of which Google account you select and accounts can be assigned to different keys. It does have some annoyances like the buttons down here are just too small and I regularly hit the wrong one on a bumpy road and I really wish there were physical controls for the climate because this just sucks. Like at least enable swiping if you're going to do this. Come on Volvo and Google. All in all though, it only took me about a day to learn how all of this works and that's like a full week before I would have learned a German car. Now how well over the air updates will pan out is yet to be seen. How long it takes some Android phones to get updates doesn't exactly inspire confidence but Google has committed to monthly security updates and there's a lot of potential. With the likes of GM, Ford, Honda and Nissan all signing up for Android Automotive in the next couple of years, it's hard to imagine this program getting relegated to the cemetery. There is one potential fatal flaw though. Without LTE, the whole thing is basically useless. The XC40 Recharge comes with Volvo's digital services package free for four years although they currently won't tell you how much it will cost to extend the functionality past that. Even if you don't renew the internal LTE, the Bluetooth makes it easy to tether your phone and failing that, the bones of the car are still great. The driver assists are solid with adaptive cruise control that's better than Tesla's although not quite at the level of Audi. The auto lane centering is great although without a physical button to toggle, I ended up just leaving it disabled. Also the 360 parking camera is, well it's better than not having one but it is way too susceptible to rain and dirt. Of course, you get all of the safety assists and I haven't found them to be too intrusive in everyday driving. Like this is a Volvo. You expect it to be safe and it is. The seat isn't just comfortable to sit in but also very safe. It has an anti-whiplash design that protects both male and female occupants equally, something that a lot of automakers can't say if they only used an average male crash test dummy. There even is an airbag at the side of the seat that deploys to protect a pregnant woman's tummy if you get t-boned. Volvo's Equal Vehicles for All initiative is seriously awesome because not only did they put in the research to make sure their cars are equally safe for everyone but they also made over 100 research reports freely available to other automakers for reference. Honestly, this is the first electric car I've driven where at the end, I'm not excited to go back to daily driving my Golf. So then, should you buy it? At $55,000 it's 5 grand less than the Model Y Long Range but with a couple options it's very easy to get them price comparable. The XC40 Recharge has 356 kilometers of range, 150 less than the Model Y and currently you don't get access to Tesla's network of superchargers. I've had less weirdness charging the Volvo than the Porsche but the superchargers alone could be reason enough to give muscular money. Or the knowledge that your panels won't fall off might be reason enough to get the Volvo. If your goal is to be wowed by tech then Tesla or Mercedes might be better options but if you want a no fuss commute that, well it looks like this, the XC40 Recharge may be the perfect choice. But not as perfect as my segways tour sponsor, Squarespace. Here's to Squarespace for sponsoring today's video. You think you don't need a website? Of course you do. You can make anything you want and it's super easy to make a website that can do almost anything on Squarespace. They have award winning templates that will help you make your website stand out instead of looking like it's from the 90s and if you're looking to open a business online selling products they have you covered too. Squarespace can help you showcase what you're selling in a modern style, they have inventory management, no limit on how many items you want to sell and we even use Squarespace. Both our Linus Media Group and LTX Expo websites were built quickly using Squarespace. If you ever get stuck making a website they have 24 hour support and a team ready to help you out. Head to squarespace.com slash ltt to get 10% off today. Huge thanks for watching, hit like, get subscribed and let us know in the comments what we can do to make these car videos better, we're still really new to them and this one was what like 10th of the budget and a third of the team? We need to make money on these if we want to do more. Let us know how well we did.