Gadgetory

this is the new xc90 and it's a very big story for them now I can recall not too long ago well yeah it was long ago when Volvo was the number one selling European luxury car in the US you didn't talk about mercedes and BMW and Audi that much in those days where signs have changed in the first third of this year luxury car sales in the US have gone up about five percent and Volvo sales about zero percent that's what they aim to fix with these guys these xc90 s come in two basic flavors a t6 and a t8 the six of the eight share the same combustion powertrain but then the eight adds plug-in hybrid electric motivation on top of that they're both three row seven seat vehicles and as you can see they've got a new but identifiable Volvo look this is their first big project since the acquisition by Chinese money five years ago so a lot of eyes are watching both t6 and t8 xc90 s have the same unusual engine a small 2-liter four-cylinder but it gets bulked way up by not a turbo or a supercharger but both the supercharger kicks in first the turbo takes over at higher rpm at which point the supercharger disengages to reduce drag then the t8 steps it up with more tech because we've added the motor in the back the battery in the middle and all of our transfer and control circuitry 400 horsepower now 472 pound-feet of torque 0 to 60 comes down from around 6 seconds to 5.3 even though the weight goes up about 400 pounds efficiency is expected to be around 59 mpg II which is typically how you start to look at these cars that can spend a fair amount of time running electric we don't have it fully certified EPA yet in front of you is an LCD instrument panel that's becoming almost required in luxury vehicles over here to the right someone that your eyes been tending toward right there is a tablet style interface and it's more than just tablet in its size and orientation it's also tablet it's muscle memory you got a home button at the bottom you drag down here to get your settings you go left and right to go to specialty screens on the left or all your vehicle and car functions go back one more to home go another one to right and there's all your infotainment functions it's a whole lot of settings for your different driver assist control including parking including collision avoidance lane keeping aids reading road signs to get that up on the head-up display and things of that nature let's talk about the driver assist now since that's what's controlled they're the ones getting a lot of attention handles your injuries or hopefully prevents them if you go off the road but it doesn't prevent you from doing that that's already existing in Lane keep and lane departure management this is one that handles spinal injuries if you go into those ruts on the side of the road at high speed so it's going to give you more of a crush zone underneath the seat it also cinches up the belt they say it's all about spinal compression protection there's automatic braking during left turns at intersections so if you're about to turn into someone and get yourself t-boned the car won't let you it's gonna cram on the brakes this is all camera and radar based the same camera and radar are looking out front for pedestrians and cyclists both day and night and with automatic braking there's a rear-end protection system here you know it's the worst feeling in the world is you're sitting there a sitting duck and you see someone's about to plow in the up and if that's the case it's gonna lock its own brakes to prevent its movement as a projectile and it's also gonna cinch up your belts to prevent your movement as a projectile pilot assist is similar to what a lot of carmakers are bringing out which is the first step of autonomy it'll handle adaptive cruise so slow speeds stop and go and keep you in your lane and your drive controls in the xc90 began in a very Swedish manner with an RO force crystal drive control handle which gets you into your PRM D&B high regeneration mode because we're in the electrified t8 here is your start/stop you rotate this thing and behind there is this nice little neural drum which you turn and click to get to your different drive modes now all-wheel drive is where you force it to go into AWD using that rear electric apparatus here's a mode that says don't use the battery I want it for later hybrid is kind of as you can imagine a mix of both for general use power is your sporty self-explanatory mode here's a rough road mode again adaptive suspension all-wheel drive this vehicle can stretch itself various ways and you can set up and cook your own mix under individual so not only is that third row pretty credible I'm gonna have seen much smaller here's a sign of our times the middle seat in the second row can be moved forward and back forward so the little one back here doesn't get separation anxiety I wonder which countries market research told them they needed this I'm in the t8 right now some numbers on its electrification it's got about 17 miles of pure evey range what's interesting is it can run electrically in the right conditions up to about 80 miles an hour so it can be a full freeway electric car and your charge time if you've got a 240 volt high amp circuit which you're gonna want for a plug-in car is about two and a half hours and of course it regens as you go none of these drive modes I find that the you know pure eco drives what you'd expect it's quite muted as you can imagine this power mode the sporty mode is the one that gives you your best engagement really feels the best but it won't be the most efficient I'm hearing a lot of sort of electric power train sounds which sometimes can be oddly intrusive whining sounds but I need to wait till we get a final US spec traduction xc90 in our hands to really judge this power train one thing I can tell you now you will hardly believe that there's a small 4-cylinder at the heart of this rig really comfortable ride and then a great job dialing in the quality of the ride now it doesn't matter what of the modes I'm in it's never harsh and it doesn't feel like it's weight to be honest this doesn't feel like the poundage that it reads on paper which is always a nice trick for a car now what I'm liking at this t6 and I'm getting a chance to sample is the lane-keeping technology that Volvo uses it's very nuanced it's very confident feeling that's going to be important as we roll out semi self-driving cars soon to consumers if the vehicle feels like it is really in charge and knows what it's doing it's gonna go a long way toward getting people to leave the skeptical range and say you know what this works ok let's wrap up now five points that make the xc90 very notable first of all you see the whole new look it's a fresh face for Volvo and it's gonna have to make a market impression get inside you've got the new look and feel of the census Kinect technology under the hood they've made a bold move two four-cylinder engines not even big ones that have turbos and supercharging they've got the plug-in technology added to the t8 variant and finally they've got some state-of-the-art driver assist technology that in some cases nobody else has or at least has as aggressively this will be important cars to watch when the t6 arrives July 15 the t8 in October or cars driven CNET style standing by now at CNET on cars.com click on the road