The wife and I picked up our
XC90 Inscription Expression T8 at the beginning of January - its got the new 18kWh/145hp electric powertrain, so I thought I'd drop my thoughts here as an early review.
STATS:- ODO - 345m
- 96% Electric and 4% Fuel usage
- 188mpg average fuel consumption in the app
Powertrain - Love it.. so fricken smooth. 90% of our journeys are local school runs, park-runs and shopping runs, so we can do this 100% electric.
No hesitations pulling off, plenty of power there when you need it (like at a roundabout or busy juntion) and it's just a delight to drive in general.
Powertrain economy - Fine. I drove 30-miles to work this morning, 38-mins driving of which 25 mins and 20 miles were on motorways doing ~70mph - all on electric with the exception of 30seconds where I needed to overtake and then it dropped back to electric again. (720mpg according to the journal!)
In-Car Entertainment - is okay. CarPlay is great, it's a shame its wired only and such a small part of the screen. Also, it took me a while to get DAB to be the default radio setting (still not sure how I managed it) rather than FM.
Other love points - things we like
- Drive comfort - it's definitely less crashy than our previous Disco Sport
- Size - it fits everything, kids, adults, kids crap - it swallows it all and asks for more
- Pre-conditioning - gotta love a warm cabin, seat and steering wheel when you set off in the freezing cold (Oh, FYI - this runs off the house charger while plugged in)
Negatives - things I don't like, or have tripped us up:
- Care Key - What is this? I mean, I know what it is, but it's a joke of an idea. Dealer said they can convert it to a standard key so we can use it with a Driver Profile, but I expect that'll come with a cost.
- Car wouldn't start - yesterday the wife loaded the kids and all into the car and it just wouldn't start. "Turn Start knob to start" - it kept repeating. Cue a lot of cursing from the wife. I managed to get it started, half hour later after a bit of back-and-forth with the non-the-wiser dealership. VOC is useless for actually troubleshooting an issue it turns out.
- Manual kids locks - ugh. Electronic kids locking was a basic function on the Disco Sport, and in the XC90 it's a paid add-on. So I have to get this thing they call a key and stick it in a hole in the door... what is this, the 90's?