Electric-only Volvo C40 to challenge Tesla Model 3

The Volvo C40 Recharge -- the second member of the automaker's full-electric lineup -- will only be offered with a battery-power drivetrain and only sold online, helping the automaker edge closer to two of its long-term goals.

By 2030, Volvo wants every car it sells to be full electric and by 2025, it wants 50 percent of its worldwide sales to be done online.

"The C40 Recharge represents the future of Volvo and shows where we are going," Chief Technology Officer Henrik Green said in a statement. Volvo will start taking orders for the Tesla Model 3 and Volkswagen ID3 rival in mid-May.

The C40 Recharge has a sleeker design than its electric sibling, the XC40 Recharge, largely because at 1582 mm its height is 69 mm (2.7 inches) less than the compact SUV, with which it shares Volvo's CMA platform.

The compact crossover is also 6 mm longer (4431 mm vs. 4425 mm) but just 1 mm wider (2035 mm vs. 2034 mm) than the XC40 Recharge.

The rear of the C40 Recharge has a completely reworked taillight design compared with the compact SUV. The new car also includes LED headlights with state-of-the-art pixel-technology that Volvo said allows for the dimming of specific pixels, which reduces glare for oncoming traffic without sacrificing the light needed for safe driving.

Another key difference is that the XC40, Europe's No. 1-selling premium compact SUV in 2020 and Volvo's global best-seller in January, is also offered with gasoline, diesel and plug-in hybrid powertrains while the C40 was designed from the beginning only as a full-electric car. This gave Volvo more freedom with the new crossover's design.

"The C40 is much more of a "me" car. I want to express myself visually with the product that I own and drive," Green told Automotive News Europe. "It still captures a lot of the practicality from the XC40 but it's more of an individualist's car than a practical family car."

Performance-wise, the siblings are identical, with each having a range of up to 418 km (260 miles) from their 78-kilowatt-hour battery packs, which provides 74 kWh of usable capacity, resulting in 402 hp and 660 newton meters (487 pounds-feet) of torque. Each car can accelerated from 0 to 100 kph in 4.9 seconds and reach a top speed of 180 kph.

If a 150-kilowatt fast charger is used, it takes 40 minutes to bring the C40 Recharge's battery to 80 percent capacity. Volvo estimates that every 10 minutes plugged into a fast charger adds about 100 km of range. Recharging to 100 percent capacity using a standard 3.7- to 11-kW charger takes 8 hours.

The sibling models also share their Android-based infotainment system that Volvo developed with Google. The package includes navigation with Google Maps, voice recognition with Google Assistant and access to the Google Play Store for a range of in-car apps. The cars' software will be kept up to date via over-the-air updates.

Volvo said the C40 Recharge will come standard with a convenience package that includes maintenance, roadside assistance and a warranty. Where available, Volvo will provide insurance and home charging options to C40 Recharge buyers.

Output of the C40 Recharge will begin this autumn at Volvo's factory plant in Ghent, Belgium. Volvo estimates Ghent's production of full-electric cars will triple between last year and 2022, at which time battery-driven models will account for about 60 percent of the plant's total capacity.

Last year, the automaker produced 194,890 cars in Ghent, including 6,604 full-electric XC40 Recharge models and 36,905 plug-in hybrid versions of the SUV, according to company figures.

XC40s and V60 midsize station wagons powered by combustion engines accounted for the rest of the production.

Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson wants the automaker's Recharge line of full-electric and plug-in hybrid cars to account for 25 percent of the company's global sales this year.

The Recharge family accounted for 17 percent of Volvo's 2020 global volume, up from 6.5 percent in 2019.

Samuelsson is bullish Volvo can reach the goal because because 19 percent of Volvo's global sales in the second-half of 2020 were Recharge models.

In addition, Recharge models accounted for about 13,700 sales in January, or 23 percent of the automaker's worldwide volume for the month.