Volvo C30 Electric 2013 Review - International

The Volvo pictured here is not your run-of-the-mill C30 hatchback, as the 'ELECTRIC' signage on its bonnet and lower flanks will attest.

A product of the union between Volvo and Swiss partner Brusa, the company that supplied the car's drive unit, the C30 Electric has been developed for evaluation by government and private fleets. Only 100 vehicles are being built initially, although Volvo plans to build a further batch of 100 cars, with Siemens supplying the electric motors in lieu of Brusa.

Given the cost of the two 140kg batteries in each car (around €15,000 a piece, or nearly $A19,000), purchasing the C30 Electric would be prohibitive, even for the private and public-sector fleets lined up to evaluate the car in the field. So instead, Volvo is leasing the cars to those companies and statutory bodies.

The C30 Electric has been under development since the height of the Global Financial Crisis and its faltering development over that period since 2009 is a reflection of the prevailing financial context, with automotive manufacturers finding any and all means to cut costs. Unfortunately the C30 Electric, as a package, has suffered for that reason.

It's a refined car and certainly doesn't feel like some Heath Robinson contraption rolled out of an underfunded backyard workshop — not by any means. However, it doesn't advance the cause of electric vehicles as much as it should have done, and that is almost certainly because the vehicle's development was delayed by circumstances beyond Volvo's control... being sold by Ford to Geely probably among those circumstances.

We won't see the C30 Electric in Australia. But to slake the curiosity of the local press, Volvo recently laid on a brief drive of the zero-emissions vehicle around the company's proving ground in Gothenburg, Sweden. For a car that's not in volume production as such, the C30 feels very accomplished. It performs and steers much like a conventional C30, but with smoother power delivery and lower levels of NVH.

As a matter of fact, the noise, vibration and harshness of the Volvo is demonstrably better than in the case of the other EV this writer has driven in recent times, Mitsubishi's i-MiEV. Like the diminutive Mitsu, the C30 Electric runs a single reduction gear drive system with two mode engine operation. Selecting 'D' for Drive will recover more energy from braking and is recommended by Volvo for urban traffic.

'H' stands for 'Highway' and is the alternative to 'D' for those occasions when the C30 is being driven on the open road. At those times, coasting downhill to get a run-up for the hill on the other side may be a more energy-efficient means of running the car than having it brake all the way down hill, only to have to use all that energy again on the other side. We did test the two modes on Volvo's proving ground track, but it would require a longer drive to determine whether there's a clear need for both modes.

There is no denying that the C30 Electric is easier to drive than the conventional C30, in any number of ways. There's only one drive unit, unlike hybrids for instance, so the instrumentation is relatively sparse, making for less distraction and complexity. We like, as one example, the fact that battery charge gets pride of place in the speedo section of the instrument panel. Users must scroll through information to find the range readout, which is a good thing, we think.

Rather than relying on range to tell you how far you have available from the car before the battery dies and leaves you stranded, the charge meter works much like a fuel gauge, telling you how much is left. Owners of EVs probably should rely more on this sort of metre than the range readout, which can be misleading if you think there's 100km of range available, but only 50km is free-flowing arterial road and the rest is high-density urban commuting.

Performance-wise, the C30 offers a range of 150km, top speed of 130km/h and acceleration to 100km/h in 10.9 seconds. It's not an earth-shattering time, and this is where the car's delayed development is most apparent. But the available torque and the very commendable NVH mask the car's low performance and the C30 actually feels relatively lively.

The electric motor is mounted under the bonnet and drives the front wheels, emitting zero emissions and drawing 15kWh of power for every 100km of travel from the two lithium-ion batteries, which are rated at 400V and 24kWh. Both are mounted low between the two axles, contributing to a vehicle weight distribution of 56 per cent front and 44 per cent rear. Volvo claims that the batteries can be charged fully from standard domestic power outlets within an eight-hour period.

The C30 Electric incorporates interesting features tailored for more extreme climates (like Sweden, for instance). There are two cabin heating systems, one of which draws power from the battery and is referred to as an immersion heater, but another system relies on E85 flex fuel from a 12-litre tank to keep both the cabin and the batteries warm, ensuring that the 150km range is available even in the coldest winter.

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