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This past Friday I took delivery on my 2021 Crystal White XC60 T8 Recharge w/Inscription trim (blond leather interior). No photos yet, they will come soon.
As the titles say's, it's not my 1st rodeo with Hybrids. My 1st was the very 1st RX450h Lexus in town, my biggest mistake was trading it at 60K miles. Wonderful car.
#2 Loving the Hybrid technology, I also purchased a Lexus CT(h) F Sport. Traded that for a Subaru Outback because it was too small.
#3 I traded a Lexus RC350 Fsport for my Honda Clarity (3rd (h) and 1st PHEV. I loved the PHEV tech but the car was killed when a Jeep Cherokee backed into the center post at about 45 mph and killed it :-( .
#4 Insurance for the Clarity paid off very well and I bought a 2019 Toyota RAV4 (h). I drove that car for two years to the week and traded it for my Volvo XC60 T8 Recharge :-) .
Today Wednesday, I'm taking the time to log on here and muse a bit about the tech, what I like, and what I wish the car had.
Have I said yet, "I love this car"? Ok, I just did. Now I'll get two things out of the way that bother me. My 1st PHEV could actually deliver between 40 and 50 miles on total electric in a much smaller car. Now I'm retired and most day's I'll get by driving around very quietly w/o burning a drop of gas but..... It's a fair sized SUV, they could have packed a few more cells in there for longer range on battery. Just saying, and I bet when the 2022's arrive, they will go further.
Also, referring back to my deceased Clarity, there was a feature in the setup that allowed you to set a time for the charging to begin. That's very important here in Georgia. I have a level two source already in my Garage. GA Power allows us to request a meter re-set to allow off peak time hours (between 11PM and 7AM) to use for things like dishwashers, laundry dryers, and yes-charging our electric vehicles at just 1cent per kilowatt hour as opposed to peak hours (afternoon) when it's 20 cents per kilowatt hour. That said, I bet if your listening Volvo, could you think about programing that little feature into the system during one of your magical 'virtual downloads' ??? I'm not ranting, I knew this feature was not there when I bought it. As I said, "I LOVE THIS CAR", but maybe that's something that could be added so I won't have to get up at 11PM to start the charge. On virtually all electric cars, the chargers are actually in the cars. We just plug them into an energy source that is usually referred to as the 'charger' but it's not, just a supplier of the juice.
I have a very interesting past regarding Automobile's. I've owned something north of 200!!! I got off my 1st tour of duty in the Navy in Jan of '68 and by accident (sort of ), I got into the retail end of the car business here in Atlanta and north metro. At that time, I was just 22 and already on my 3rd car & 1st motor cycle. I spent 20 years to the week in the business and between new and used cars, I ran the count up very fast. My wife told me I had some kind of disease. Maybe I should have listened because I kept getting this itch I had to scratch. There's a lot more to this story but I won't tell it here other than to say my tour in the industry started with Lincoln & Mercury, than Porsche & Audi (when they were together), than a short stint w/Volvo (bought a used P1800), than moved to Acura where I worked prior to returning to the Navy to finish my 20 years there retiring in Nov of 2003. Many of my cars (not demo's) I bought as new ones and re-sold but the majority were used ones I bought off the lot to do minor maintenance and re-sell down the road. Just since retiring in '03, I've owned counting this latest Volvo, 11 all new and just for me. My late wife passed from Alzheimer's several years past though she was always driving one of my cars until 2006 when she was unable anymore.
The RAV4h was a good car and delivered the 41 mpg the window sticker promised (and then some) but I just wanted something nice again but Lexus just didn't have a model (PHEV) that appealed to me. I was looking at the ads for the new Lincoln Corsair but the PHEV model is late coming out due to the shortage of chips and shortage of workers (COVID). It will probably start up in Aug. The new Mitsubishi Outlander is a very nice car but the PHEV version probably won't arrive until 2022 model. I almost bought the new Tesla but chickened out. I'm still liking the gas engine as back up. The charging infrastructure is getting better but it still takes longer than filling the tank w/gas. Not scared at all of taking this car on the road. I was not impressed by MB, Acura, or Audi.
Glad to be here, photos and stories to come.
Jim M
Thank you for this read. First off Hats off to you and thank you for your service. My dad was in the Army for 20+ years so I know that service life ain't easy and I appreciate what you have done for our country.
Alright so next... You got me to join the forums and not just be a guest/lurker because I had to tell you thanks for this story and I got to hear more car stories (200+ cars wow) from you.
Second...I am here in the Atlanta area too and when you were talking about ATL I just got super proud! Go Hawks we going to the ECF baby!
Third...I am a hybrid/PHEV evangelist too. We own an 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid with +260k miles. Car drives great and haven't had a hybrid issue since owning it over 7 years ago.
All that said I am super excited to be in the market for a used 2017/2018 XC90 T8 (Lux package, Climate, convenicne, B&W audio, 4 corner air, and Boaster seat) for my wife. We test drove one 2 weeks ago at our local Volvo dealer (North Point) and my wife fell in love hard....like the sales woman looked at me and was like should I just wrap this up for you? I told her no and dragged my wife out of there (not literally). She falls to hard for cars especially when the sticker price is out of the budget, but I am willing to travel and look for deals throughout the continuous 48. I love road trips and there is no better road trip than one where you get to pick up a new ride to drive home.
I digress...Jim thanks for the read and I agree with the two suggestions for Volvo. I hope they get on it before we get our Volvo.
If you are ever open to going for a drive around 285 let me know. I am an Acura guy myself and only drive MTs for my DD (TL 04' 6spd).
Nothing major, just a couple of snaps from driveway.
So far I have around 700 logged miles and still learning features I didn't know it had. One tech feature I think I understand is, it has the ability to compute the best combination of gas and battery use on a trip 'if' you program a destination into the NAV. Unless I'm wrong (I was once), it judges speed, traffic and miles to best utilize the battery for best economy. In the fall, I plan a trip to Tx to see family, and I can check that out. This past week, the Volvo app upgraded but lost the ability to 'clean the cabin air' remotely with the app. I liked that feature as I'm an asthmatic so I reverted back to the original. I'm getting close to 70% of my driving done on battery alone so loving the T8. I already canceled the free Cirrus XM trial and reverted to my Lifetime I bought when they were offering it back around 2004 (one of my smarter purchases).
If availability had been such that I could have picked the same car but with the $3000 radio I probably would have but the standard model is better than what was in my last car. Charging in garage Rear qtr Dash view
Thanks for the post. I am trading in my lease early on a 2019 Bursting Blue Polestar tuned fully loaded R-Design on a black R-Design Polestar T8 Hybrid. Can't wait to see what the hybrid has to offer!! r
The 1st one I test drove was a black 2021 Polestar. I have quite a history of high performance cars from Porsche 911's (several thru the years) to one of the 1st C7 'Vettes with the Z51 package I special ordered. 400HP in a nicely trimmed and understated XC60 T8 SUV suites me fine now. It's still quite a sleeper LOL. Everything I could want with just one car in the garage now.
RE: the T8 Hybrid, I think you'll really enjoy it. I get most of my urban driving now done on the battery alone. Today already I've been to COSTCO, + two trips to Publix and still have near a 1/2 charge. I've not had to fill it yet, but did top it off last Friday just to get some 'fresh' gas in it. 970 something miles now and I've probably only used 6-8 gallons total of gas. Tonight at 11PM (when GA Power goes to .1 cent per KWH), I'll charge back up. Still learning the Swedish way of thinking, example-why did they drop the start/stop button in favor of a console **** twist? As I have the Blond interior, I'm sure there will eventually be a smudge on the lower dash where the start button should be LOL.
I was wondering if there would be a significant difference in handling between Hybrid or Sport mode on the nice GA country highways and the 'Pure" mode just pushing it with the rear electric motor only. There is some, but you have to really push it to tell. Nice handling either way. According to my phone app set for my car, it's 5862 lbs., no lightweight.
I've never owned a non-plugin "mild" hybrid, nor would I ever buy one. We went straight from ICEVs to PHEVs (my 2022 XC60 T8 ER is our third PHEV) and will go from there to BEVs in the next few years as battery tech and charging infrastructure improves. I test-drove several pre-"Extended Range" XC60 PHEVs, including a couple of 2022s, and they were all horrible; after trying really hard to buy a Volvo PHEV from 2017 until last year (prior to the ERs coming out this year), I just couldn't do it (the all-electric range was pathetically low and the drivetrain power was very lethargic). But the ER version that I bought two months ago is night-and-day different from the previous Volvo PHEVs -- amazing acceleration, and I can get close to 50 miles of all-electric range in local driving conditions (speeds < 40-45 mph) in warm weather.
Hi,
It has been 2 years you own this car. Do you have any update how does it go, what are maintenance coasts. How does the battery hold, etc.
Currently I'm looking to buy rav4 2019 hybrid which in my country is around 30k eiro. But there is one interesting deal with XC60 T8 recharge, which is 26k eiros, but with 240k km (150k miles) on spidometer, which is quite worrying number.
06-03-2021, 01:50 PM
5th Hybrid, 2nd PHEV (H), 2nd Volvo
