Volvo C40

FIRST DRIVE Swedish brand moves electric motor to rear axle on its small coupé-SUV

- Richard Ingram

IT'S not often that a car's core running gear is fundamentally altered midway through its lifecycle. Yet with the basic C40, as well as the mechanically similar XC40 (Page 24), Volvo has moved the electric motor from the front axle to the back.

Historically, rear-driven cars have been favoured by enthusiasts, although Volvo claims the changes made here are mainly to improve efficiency. As tested and despite there being no tweaks to the battery size or chemistry - our single-motor C40 in midspec Plus trim offers a claimed 295 miles of range, up from 269 miles previously.

But the maximum charge rate on updated single-motor XC40 and C40 cars drops from 150kW to 130kW, apparently due to a change in battery supplier. It means that they take an extra couple of minutes to charge from 10-80 per cent, requiring 34 minutes.

It's worth noting at this point that our car featured a slightly more powerful 249bhp motor, which in other markets can be paired with an 82kWh 'Long Range' battery. In the UK, that larger battery is only available on dual-motor Recharge Twin cars.

In mixed driving, including longer stints of 70mph motorway cruising - notoriously damaging to an EV's projected range - our rear-drive model consistently returned more than 3.3 miles/kWh in low temperatures. That translates to a real-world improvement of around 30 miles over the front-drive XC40.