The following is a discussion with Aussie electric vehicle (EV) owner Soniru about their purchase of a Volvo C40 Recharge MY23 Twin Ultimate and experience driving, servicing, charging etc.
EDITOR: I’m publishing a regular series of articles with the views of Australian EV owners about their EV ownership experience.
This will help fill an information gap as the majority of electric car news articles are about new car launches and there’s relatively little published about the longer term Australian ownership experience after you’ve paid for your electric car. Hopefully this shared information helps other Aussies make their own EV purchase decision.
If you’re an Australian electric vehicle owner and would like to participate in this interview series by sharing your experience please contact me directly or add a comment below and let me know.
Was your electric car bought or leased?
Bought new.
Please describe your purchasing / lease process experience … Easy, Mediocre, Frustrating..?
Buying our Volvo C40 was a seamless process with the assistance of the friendly team at Volvo Cars Penrith.
We initially came in looking for a MY22 XC40 Recharge Twin painted in Sage Green, in March 2022. However global dramas pushed production the production date further and the facelift the XC40 underwent meant we were moved to the next production year.
We were quite disappointed that we would be getting the car in March 2023 however the team endeavoured to find us a solution.
They offered us the opportunity to change our agreement to a MY23 Volvo C40 painted in Fjord Blue and this would arrive on the December of 2022. The C40 was $4000 more expensive than the XC40 at the time and they offered to take $2000 off due to the chaos.
The car arrived in immaculate condition and were impressed from day one. Fast forward 2 years getting a Volvo C40 shouldn’t be hard task as dealers will usually have a handful of floor stock or cars on order which will arrive within a few months.
What has the regular servicing / dealership experience been like?
We haven’t had our regular service just yet but we have been to two Volvo dealers to get tyres replaced.
We had a bad puncture in Melbourne and the crew at Volvo Cars Essendon swiftly helped us with sourcing a rare Pirelli P zero tyre and getting the car towed to the dealership from our resort.
The dealership replaced the tyre within minutes and even offered to wash the car. The only thing we paid out of pocket was the cost of the tyre everything else covered by Volvo on call.
The Penrith dealership team is super friendly and helped us to replace the bloated tyre we had and answered any little questions we had relating to the software.
How do you regularly charge your car for day to day usage?
Plug in to specially installed faster EV charger at home (smart unit that only uses solar).
What has your day to day normal charging experience been like?
We have a Wall Box pulsar plus a smart solar EV charger.
We charge our car during the day when we have plenty of solar power available and the charger ensures that the car only charges on the power from the solar panels.
If there is no or little solar power you can program the car to charge from both solar and grid power
How do you charge your car for longer road trips on the weekend or during holidays? Do you prefer any particular brand of public fast charger during road trips eg Evie, Tesla, Chargefox and why?
Once we go on longer trips we rely on the 350kw fast chargers along the highway however on some occasions we will use the slower 50kw charger if we are having longer rest stops.
So far the Evie fast chargers have been the most reliable and have been able to deliver the full 200kw power output which our car can charge at.
The Ampol and Kempower chargers are also excellent though more reliable they have slower charging speeds.
What’s the farthest road trip you’ve done in your EV and what did you learn from this experience that would be useful for others to know?
We have completed Sydney to Melbourne in our C40 and everything ran well except for the puncture.
The car handles highways, city roads, and rural roads extremely well.
If I learned one thing from this trip it would be to use the plug-share application to let other EV owners know about your charging and to purchase the RFID cards for all charger brands, this allows you to charge without using your phone.
EDITOR: Readers should know they don’t need lots of RFID cards, one is enough. Register the unique number on the card with each charging network app account you have eg: Evie, Chargefox, Exploren, BP Pulse etc.
I have planned a very long trip for this December and we will be travelling to Kangaroo island via Melbourne.
I have started to plan already and the car has been able to successfully suggest me the charging stations along the route.
Does your EV have any special features like V2L reverse charging from the car to your portable/home appliances? If yes please share your experience using this special feature
Some of the special features include
- Massive panorama roof
- Pilot assist package which allows for semi-autonomous driving on the highway, this includes basic functions like taking curves on the highway.
- Diamond cut alloys
- Remote preconditioning
- One pedal drive (proper one)
- Offroad mode which activates torque vectoring
- The car has a 3D map of a bird eye view of a national park in Sweden and it illuminates
- The most special feature is that when you select charging stations on Google Maps the car will automatically start to cool or heat the battery using the liquid coolant.
- Cornering headlights
- Corner speed assist which makes the drive a lot smoother
If you have roadside assist included with the car purchase/lease and have had to use it, which company provided the service and what was that experience like?
The Volvo has a Road Side assistance program with NRMA which I have used to get my car towed in Melbourne when it got a flat tyre.
It works well and the response time is often very fast even in rural areas.
The Volvo on-call is separately run and you have access to Volvo experts 24/7 from their international call centre, there is a small button in the car that directly calls this number.
If you have had issues with your car and asked for these to be fixed under warranty, did the car brand do the right thing and fix it without causing you stress?
Most certainly the dealer made it very clear that the car is covered with a 5-year warranty for all parts.
The battery and the powertrain have a separate warranty which goes from 8 year/unlimited kilometres.
What are the 3 strongest aspects of your electric car compared to other similar price electric cars available in Australia?
- It is a beautiful-looking car and looks very handsome and confident on the road.
- Is super fast 0-100 in 4.6 seconds, makes other cars on the road look foolishly slow.
- Excellent build quality which is able to resist the harsh Aussie weather, it has been through heat waves and hail storms and still stands strong.
What are the 3 weakest aspects of your electric car compared to other similar price electric cars available in Australia?
- The absence of a heads-up display is disappointing and for the price point not having this feature is quite a shame.
- The tyres the car rides on are super expensive costing $600 for the front and $700 for the rear and they aren’t the best quality. They don’t simply stand Australia’s rugged terrain.
- The addition of reverse cycle air-conditioning would be great however I do believe MY25 variants will be gaining this.
What is your view on car software updates? Some people prefer it be done by dealers, some don’t want updates, others want them regularly over the air?
The software updates on the car are excellent! Volvo is constantly pushing over-the-air updates that fix minor issues and sometimes add new features, for example, this year we got an air purification mode that can be turned on from the Volvo app.
The updates are regular and can be conveniently done from the comfort of my own home.
What questions would ask your car manufacturer HQ if you could?
I would love to know what happens when my 4 year “free” coverage plan ends with the car and how much I would have to pay to get a new SIM card.
Would you buy or lease this brand of electric car again and recommend it to others?
Yes, I would certainly stick with Volvo, in fact, I have my eyes on the new Volvo EX90 and may sell my current C40 to purchase a Volvo EX90.
I would also love to buy a C40 again in a different colour however I would like to try a different Volvo model, otherwise it would be boring.
Do you have any other comments about your electric car brand, experience etc?
Volvo is going to be a fully electric car brand by 2026 in Australia this will hopefully mean that each of the dealerships will be equipped with the knowledge to tackle all the issues on these highly advanced cars.
This gives me the confidence to stay with the brand and I like how you can get the beauty, style and the luxury of a Volvo without having to make any compromises with going electric.
If you’re an Australian electric vehicle owner and would like to participate in this interview series by sharing your experience please contact me directly or add a comment below and let me know.
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