Volvo’s first electric SUV runs on Google

I spent two hours using Volvo’s first electric SUV around San Francisco excellent week. The thing I liked most about it: Google Maps. 

The XC40 Recharge hits the U.S. market in January for simply under $55,000. Volvo would not try and push its recognize tool. As a replace, it be one among the major vehicles with an infotainment map totally speed on native Google tool. (We’re now not talking about Android Auto, which requires an Android phone is properly matched with vehicles from a pair of automakers.)

The XC40 Recharge has a range of 208 miles, and aspects a panoramic sunroof, mountainous seating, 2,000-pound towing capability, and quite quite a bit of trunk and front trunk, or “frunk,” plot. If it looks to be plenty love the “stylish” gasoline-powered XC40 SUV, it be because it be the same earn, simply electrified. 

“This is the manner forward for Volvo in a neatly-identified shell,” firm reps mentioned at a December press occasion. As a result of this fact the establish “Recharge.”

The correct segment of being in a Google-powered electric automobile used to be the navigation map. Google Maps used to be the de facto, and most effective, possibility, which used to be intellectual by me. When using Apple CarPlay in other vehicles, I in most cases change from the default Apple Maps to Google Maps anyway. 

There are quite quite a bit of ways to recognize interplay with the infotainment map. You doubtless can contact the heart touchscreen. You doubtless can push a button on the steering wheel and train “Hi there Google,” simply love with other Google Assistant gadgets. 

There is also a 2nd, smaller 12.2-hurry display conceal conceal on the back of the steering wheel, which helpfully confirmed the using directions, so I might well presumably well perhaps look ahead as an different of over to the exact. 

Google Maps added the flexibility to search out EV charging stations two years prior to now. That method in the XC40 Recharge, as an different of opening a separate app, I might well presumably well perhaps elevate on the Maps display conceal conceal to search out nearby areas. 

It confirmed how many chargers recognize been accessible, the charging community, and the form of price — both the extra pricey, sooner model that takes 40 minutes to procure to 80 percent, or the more inexpensive, slower form. When I tapped an possibility, Google Maps gave me directions. 

Sadly, there are most effective 25 apps in Volvo’s Google Play retailer exact now. Need WhatsApp? Too low. That’s now not the case with Android Auto, which helps you to make a preference from 250 apps.

Apple Song wasn’t accessible yet. I vital a YouTube Song tale to hearken to the pre-loaded track app (Google owned), which I invent now not recognize. I did add Libby, my audiobook app, so I might well presumably well perhaps invent the excellent chapter of Michelle Obama’s Becoming memoir.

For heavy users of Google products and services, the XC40 Recharge‘s infotainment service is extraordinarily handy. 

Less so for Apple users, who place now not recognize yelp entry to their iOS messages, track, and podcasts love they would in a automobile with CarPlay. For them, the prolonged not sleep for an Apple electric automobile might well presumably well perhaps feel even longer. By the level Apple doubtless presents its first automobile in 2025 or later, Volvo plans to recognize a minimum of 50 percent of its automobile items speed most effective on electricity. The different half of will be hybrids. By 2040, the firm says it might well well presumably well perhaps be carbon neutral.