Volvo’s latest electric vehicle, the C40 Recharge, has started rolling off the production line at its manufacturing plant in Ghent, Belgium.
Australian-spec C40 Recharges won’t come from Belgium, however, with a Volvo spokesperson confirming they’ll instead come from China.
The C40 Recharge is set to arrive in Australia in the second half of 2022.
Details of what the Australian model will have as standard equipment and what will be optional isn’t certain yet.
A coupe crossover based on the XC40, the C40 Recharge naturally has a lower and more steeply raked roof line, as well as a hatchback-style tailgate.
The C40 Recharge shares its all-wheel drive electric drivetrain with the Volvo XC40 Recharge and the soon-to-arrive Polestar 2.
Both of these models are sourced from Volvo’s Luqiao plant in China for the Australian market. Australian-market XC60s also come from China.
This latest all-electric Volvo model is part of the company’s aim to have 50 per cent of its global sales volume consist of EVs by 2025.
Volvo also plans to only sell all-electric models from 2030 onwards.
At its Belgium manufacturing plant, Volvo is increasing its electric car capacity to 135,000 per year.
The company also expects that half of the plant’s volume in 2022 will consist of EVs.
With identical front and rear electric motors, the C40 Recharge has a total system output of 300kW of power and 660Nm of torque.
Like the XC40 Recharge, the C40 Recharge can do the 0-100km/h sprint in just under five seconds.
It uses a 78kWh battery pack that Volvo claims has 440km of range according to preliminary WLTP tests.
It can also be charged from 10 to 80 per cent in about 40 minutes using a fast charger.
Inside the C40 Recharge, it’s the first Volvo model to be leather-free.
Instead, all C40 Recharge models come with leather-like options made from bio-based and recycled materials.
An example of this is Nordico, a Volvo-developed material made from recycled PET bottles, bio material from sustainable Scandinavian forests, and recycled wine corks.
The cabin of the C40 Recharge is largely carried over from the XC40.
It also includes the company’s latest Andoid-based infotainment system with Google Maps, Google Assistant and app store all pre-loaded.
In other markets the C40 Recharge gets unlimited data that helps with over-the-air software updates.
In some overseas markets, the C40 Recharge will be exclusively sold online. We’re still waiting to see how it’ll be sold here in Australia.
Deliveries of the closely related XC40 Recharge have already started but the initial allocation is already spoken for.
New customers wanting to buy an XC40 Recharge will be waiting until early 2022 before it arrives.
MORE: 2022 Volvo C40 Recharge confirmed for Australia
MORE: Volvo to go leather-free starting with electric vehicles
MORE: Volvo XC40 Recharge Pure Electric sold out until 2022
