The V60 PHEV offers all that, as you’d expect, but an awful lot more as well. The regular Volvo V60 isn’t perfect, but it’s an awful lot better than those whose mind set defaults to BMW or Mercedes think, with decent steering, decent dynamics, decent comfort and decent performance. Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid – Performance on the road Individual options included here include Power Glass Roof (£850), Keyless (£550), Sensus with Harmon Kardon Premium Sound (£500), Rear Camera (£375), Park Assist front and back (£325) and extra long plug-in cables (£50). That spec includes the Driver Support Pack – stuff like Adaptive Cruise, Collision warning, Pedestrian Detection, Lane Departure Warning and Blind Spot Monitoring – which costs £1900 and the Winter Illumination Pack – which includes heated front seats, heated windscreen, Active Bending Xenons, spiffy ambient light and auto-dimming mirrors – for another £675. The V60 Plug-in Hybrid has the usual appealing V60 cabin Inside is regular Volvo V60 good as well, with a simple – but appealing – Swedish take on luxury, easy to use and intuitive (once you’re used to them) controls and great seats – leather faced R-Design ones with electric adjustment and heated thanks to the big spec mentioned above. The only thing that really marks the PHEV out from the non-hybrid V60s is ‘Plug-In Hybrid’ in subtle letters on the trailing edge of the tailgate, small badges at the top back of the front wings and an extra fuel flap on the front wing to plug in to the mains. So the this V60 PHEV does what it says on its very long name and comes with the R-Design body kit to look purposeful without looking gaudy, a nice set of alloys to set that off and a white paint job that makes people pull over and stick to 69mph on motorways when you motor up behind them. “Inside is regular Volvo V60 good as well, with a simple – but appealing – Swedish take on luxury, easy to use and intuitive controls and great seats – leather faced R-Design ones with electric adjustment and heated thanks to the big spec” Thankfully, car makers have learnt in the last few years that ‘Green’ cars don’t need to have hair-shirt looks, and buyers are more likely to buy if the car looks good as well as doing good. Yes, you get a £5k rebate from the taxpayer when you buy, but that still means the Volvo Estate we’re testing costs £53,150, even after rebate – a chunk more than the V60 Polestar we tested a couple of years ago. On the face of it, the V60 PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) is the best of both worlds, with the promise of low-cost electric emissions-free driving when you need it and performance you don’t expect from a hybrid when you want to play.īut the elephant in the room is the price – a not insubstantial £51,675, and a properly hefty £58,150 with the goodies Volvo has fitted to our review car. Which, thankfully, isn’t written in big chrome letters on the V60’s tailgate. Which is a good USP.īut what Volvo has also done is turn the V60 in to the world’s first diesel plug-in hybrid with the car we’ve got this week – the Volvo V60 PHEV D6 AWD Geartronic R Design Lux Nav. The V60 may no longer be a ‘new’ Volvo, but its is a car Volvo has worked hard to make very appealing, and done so in a way that isn’t Teutonic copy-cat, rather more subtle and matter of fact. Volvo is busy reinventing itself as a maker of proper premium cars that aren’t German, and making a decent fist of it with newer cars like the V40 and the potentially game-changing new XC90, but also with cars that have been around a bit longer. We have the Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid in for review and test, with the D6 AWD Geartronic R-Design Lux Nav offering impressive economy and performance.
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