Battery Range on XC40 P6 Recharge
 

Hi,
Took delivery on 1st Feb of a new XC40 P6 recharge.
The battery is only charging to about 170 miles, at 90% charge.
How do I get more range? Volvo spec says 262 miles and the Volvo app says 232 miles.
Thanks

I would say wait for warmer, drier and less windy weather - the official range is something I have never got anywhere near in my ipace (have c40 arriving in a couple of weeks) - the official is something around 270-290 but my best ever was around 250, the current range is around 200 driven gently on 20-30 mile journeys and 160 with lots of stop start

Battery
 

I appreciate weather, driving style etc effect the battery, I’m just on about the actual change. Can get it to charge more than 170 miles.

I charged my p8 recharge yesterday to 90% and had a look to see the information it said I had a range of 140 miles. The climate control was the thing that had the biggest effect on the car.

A couple of weeks in and theoretical range when full is shown as around 210 miles. Can improve quite a lot by gentle driving with air con off, or do badly by driving hard. Seems far more sensitive to how you drive it than the ipace

I did three tests runs over greater than 100miles. I tried different driving styles. The best motorway range I got was 186 miles driving at an average speed of 54mph. Used cruise control. No crazy acceleration. Temperature was around 14C, so almost optimal. Climate controlled turned off.

The implied usable battery capacity from my tests was 60.69 kWh.

Something is really wrong with this p6.

I called care by volvo to discuss. Turns out the battery capacity of the p6 is only 69kWh (67 kWw usable). This is completely different to that stated in their advertising here. (You need to click "All performance data" to read it). This page shows 78kWh usable. None of their maths on the range works on 67kWh. You can never get 260 miles on that 67kWh battery.

I have booked a call with a manager from Care by Volvo to explain themselves tomorrow. I will either be returning the car as significantly not as described or I will expect a large reduction in monthly cost. That discrepancy 11kWh of usable battery capacity is about £8,000 worth of cost cutting on the car. Someone has made a career ending mistake here.

If Volvo change their website specifications and you need a copy, please ask. I have a snapshot of the webpage and a picture.

That’s really useful and interesting. How did it go with your phone call?

I’ve no real world data, but likewise we’ve have a cbv P6 for 3 weeks and never see a range of over 200 miles. Usually theoretical range given is around 180 max. Like you, was expecting 78kWh…

Oop North, 210 range when full sounds pretty good. Is yours a P6?

Call didn't go well. They asked me to take it in for diagnostics. I told them that diagnostics aren't going to deliver the missing 11 kWhs advertised that aren't installed on my car.

If you have a 67kWh (usable) p6, you will never get the advertised combined range even when driving at 30 miles an hour on the flat at 23C.

Here's some maths:

Their documentation states a power economy of 3.2 - 3.3 miles per kWh.

Their advertised electric range is 257 miles.

For a 67 kWh usable battery at 3.3 miles/kWh that gives us a maximum theoretical range of 221 (recognise this value from the cars range app?)

For a 78 kWh battery at 3.3 miles per kWh that gives us a maximum theoretical range of 257.4 miles (recognise this from the advertising?)

It's not immediately clear where the error that led to the smaller car battery or incorrect advertising took place, but it is completely clear that the car that has been delivered to me is not the one I paid for.

I've submitted a complaint under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and asked for my contract to be cancelled and the car returned, or some equal resolution.

Sounds like one for Auto Express as well.

I know VW dieselgate was different, but it's still about a principle of buying something that has gone through testing and homologation that you have bought in good faith.

It's a bit like buying an ICE car with a 1.6 litre 200bhp and finding its actually got a 1.3 with 150bhp:shocked:

Thanks for the update.

:confused_smile: Hmm…”take it in for…” seems to be the response for anything they can’t resolve over the phone. Guess it’s good the dealerships are getting some additional income as I assume each visit is reimbursed!

It sounds like they are avoiding the issue, as clearly diagnostics will not identify any problem other than it’s got a smaller battery than claimed!? So whilst probably a waste of time for all, maybe a step we all have to go through?

It’s a shame as in every other way the car is generally great and we are really enjoying ours which is only on the 3 month cbv pending arrival later this year of a P8 factory order on cbv. If the P6 was on the 3 year cbv or owned outright we’d probably go down the same route as you.

Let us know how things progress. Hope it gets resolved.