Greg & Wayne’s eXCellent XC40EV adventures

Took the XC up to the shops today. Need to run the numbers but looks like it uses about the same amount of energy as the 240EV...guess it weighs about 750 kg more and has dual motors, 20-inch wheels and all the mod-cons, but with the regen braking I thought maybe it would be a bit better. A few comparison pics - I’m planning to do an article for the Volvo Club magazine (“Rolling Australia”) soon. The vision out of the 240 wagon is so awesome...it feels safer to drive. The cameras in the XC are a must for reversing! When I hopped in the car this AM it had no mobile connection so the Google maps were complaining. Hmm, when I got to town I tried re-setting the LTE/modem (didn’t seem to do anything?) and also re-booted the IHU. Still no mobile connection. Went in to do grocery shopping and half hour later when I got in the car, all good. The Volvo Cars app where you’re supposed to see the car’s status (locked/unlocked, climate, state of charge) doesn’t work too often. I think if the car goes to sleep or is parked in the shed where the mobile signal is poor, the car and server and phone can’t all communicate. Too technical for my mechanical engineer’s brain LOL! Hopefully the car will improve with OTA (over the air) software updates as time goes forward. Given this Android Auto Operating System is rolling out in all the Volvos starting for 2022, they had better get it sorted ASAP!

A few comparison pics below. When we were building the 240EV, Tesla wasn’t even on the radar, and we had no thoughts of making a front boot (“froot” or is it front trunk “frunk”) [As I read that it sounds like I have a speech impediment, not that there’s anything wrong with that!] Anyway, looking at the pics, if we had re-positioned the inverter and not fitted the decorative strut brace, we could have had a frunk large enough to take a large suitcase...or another 20 kWh of batteries. Hmmm... I think I have a Volvo emblem and diagonal from a Volvo bus/truck kit...wonder if I should put that on the 240...it looks kinda naked without it!

Roinik

They're about as aero as each other.

Haha well, surprisingly looking at the technical data for the 2022 Recharge Twin from Volvo, the aero isn’t that bad at 0.329 Cd...I know we were trying to get down to 0.32x with the VE Commodore during the design phase!! Frontal area is fairly large since the XC is so tall. Some screen grabs below from this presentation that may be of interest: https://www.mech.kth.se/courses/5C1211/Externals_2012/Ljundberg_2012_1.pdf

It’s saying the 245 has a Cd of 0.45 (that’s a 75 model...later ones could be a tad better) and I saw on the Google that the 240 has a frontal area of 2.05 square metres.

XC40EV CdxA = 0.329x2.56 = 0.842

240 CdxA = 0.45x2.05 = .922

Sooo, since the frontal area of the 240 is so small compared to the XC40, the 240s aero drag force isn’t much worse than the XC40EV. :)

Did a “big” loop trip today...dropped the dog (COVID contactless of course!) at Wayne’s mum’s, then met up with another Volvo mate in Castlemaine for a leisurely picnic lunch at the botanical gardens there (very pretty!) From there down to Supercheap Auto in Ballarat (needed a windscreen sun shade for the new car plus some coolant and oil for the ICE - internal combustion engine - cars). Then a stop at Bunnings (misc bits and pieces plus another bag of wall insulation for the shed project). Then a quick charge to test the 50 kW chargers at Ballarat Central Big W. They are RACV/Chargefox collaboration chargers and there’s quite a few including some 350 kW chargers (the Volvo can do 150 kW but we didn’t see the need and the higher charging rates can be harder on the batteries). For example we were charging there for 19 minutes while picked up a few Chinese items at Big W and the car was charging at close to 50 kW and was showing over 200 km/hour added at that rate. Our overall efficiency for today’s drive of 246.5 km was 21.9 kWh per 100 km at an average speed of 69 kph. This trip was mainly on rural back roads, with a stretch of 110 kph freeway between Ballarat and Wayne’s mum’s place in Ballan.

At one stage I overtook a B-double and put my foot to the floor (or nearly) and we were up to 1xx kph in no time flat...and another time in Ballarat we were in the left lane at the front stopped at a set of lights, and the lane ended shortly after the lights. When the light turned green I punched it and we were gone - Wayne said all the blood rushed to the back of his head LOL! This is pretty much the first time we’ve driven it without the dog - until we get the rear seat hammock/protector set-up we’ve been folding down the seats for Penny and putting her bed on top...if we nailed it she’d fly into the tailgate pronto! :)

Another thing - I checked the tyre pressure yesterday and as delivered the car had 34 psi in the tyres. Spec is 41 psi loaded, unloaded or ECO...so I pumped them up to 41 psi. Of course the ride isn’t quite as supple now but the range should be better.

Friday we plan to meet up with some neighbours down near Anakie for an orchid walk and picnic, so another run and this time probably on some unsealed roads. I washed the bugs off the front tonight when we got home and I will put a coat of Meguiars high-tech wax on the front & mirror housings tomorrow so the bugs don’t stick as well!

Fun times and some learning along the way. The Volvo Cars app is pretty useless. I think my phone has only shown the state of charge once...and you’re supposed to be able to lock and unlock the car from the phone - my phone won’t...I think Wayne’s might have given that option at times. About 90% of the time my phone just says “pair a car with your phone” when I log in to the app. I might lodge a call/complaint with Volvo - maybe they’ll give us some free mud flaps or another umbrella? ;) Good news is no trouble with the mobile connection or maps today. The maps tells you the estimated state of charge at your destination and it was within about 1% at every leg of our trip today. “Hey Google: what’s my range?” will give you the estimated driving range (to 0% I assume) at any given time, but “Hey Google, what’s my speed?” - “sorry, I didn’t understand that”...”Hey Google: how fast am I” (it missed the last word “going”) and she replied “I can run at the speed of light” ...LOL

Forgot to mention we were a bit early getting to Castlemaine so detoured past the chargers at the Castlemaine “Maxi SUPA IGA”...couple of Evie 50 kW chargers. Nice to see options in country towns...and great to have the at the grocery store, shopping centre etc. where you typically might want to spend a bit of time while charging.

Did another “road trip” today. We charged up a bit overnight to 80% and then before departing pre-heated the cabin (it was only 6C when we left home! Met neighbours in Steiglitz and from there went into the Brisbane Ranges for a walk to check out the wildflowers and a picnic lunch. The neighbours were nice enough to take some pics of us driving thru a ford...probably as close to off-roading as we’ll ever go LOL! I did give the car a sponge bath and wax yesterday to make the bugs and crap easier to get off during future washes.

We started with 81% SOC, did 143.7 km and our efficiency was 22.7 kWh/100 km. Hoping that the new V1.7 software update arrives soon via the airwaves as it’s supposed to improve range and efficiency by a bit due to optimisation of various systems in the car.

The Volvo Cars app is still working very sporadically and often doesn’t show SOC etc. I’m going to ring the Volvo Aus help number about it.

Forgot to mention the car does quite well on the unsealed roads - quiet, good ride and of course with all that weight it’s stable!

We were messing around with the Google Assistant...trying to change the voice - at one stage when Wayne was driving we were able to get it to speak in a male British voice...but couldn’t do that when I was driving. Faffed around at home on our Android phone devices after the drive and still had no joy really trying to change the assistant voice. The only real way to do it was to set the language as English (USA) and that gives the option of about 5 annoying American voices, one Pommy female and one Aussie female...more investigation needed here. Maybe need to try setting language to English (UK)....would be nice to get the voice of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey...”I’m sorry Greg, I can’t allow you to do that”...maybe not!

I’d really like a proper posh British male navigation and assistant voice...someone to make me feel impotent...er, I mean important! ;)

Chris

You want the Jeremy Clarkson version then :) I believe it used to say things like "No, you stupid man, I said turn right" and "More powaah" Oh and remember if you got the Hal version it would lock you out of the car and attempt to kill you...

The way the software is on this Recharge I think Hal might be more appropriate LOL!