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The Volvo XC60 is perhaps one of the most important cars to Volvo and I say

that because the previous XC60 did tremendously well in many of its major markets

This as you can tell is the second-generation XC60 and it looks

nothing like the older model In fact, this baby is entirely new from the ground up

This very unit right here is the top-of-the-line T8 Twin Engine Inscription Plus

It's fully imported from Sweden and is priced at RM373,888

It rides on the new Scalable Product Architecture platform that's

purposely designed to accommodate a plug-in hybrid system but there's also a

non hybrid option like the T5 Momentum that we'll be getting soon

I've already done a full walk-around video of this car so if you want to watch that video

click on the link in the description box below But for you first-timers I'll

briefly run things down once more On the outside the XC60 is basically a shrunken

down version of the XC90 Here in the T8 guise it gets this unique chrome grille

with the Iron Mark badge, 19-inch 10-spoke dual tone alloy wheels and dual exhaust pipes

The wheels can be upgraded to 21-inch items and we're told that the

price of it together with the tyres starts from around RM15k

That's not too bad right? Standard items include these full LED

headlights with Thor's Hammer LED daytime running lights

Actually I keep calling it Thor's Hammer but it doesn't even look like it - it just looks like a

weird T but it still looks good and very distinctly Volvo so call it whatever you want I guess?

Keen observers will notice something different about

this car and that's because it comes fitted with this exterior styling pack

For RM8,288 you get this aluminium

front and rear skid plates, silk metal side mirror caps as well as AMG style exhaust tips

The real pipe is hidden somewhere behind so it's still purely aesthetics

Tf you choose to go with this styling pack just keep in mind that a

foot sensor for the tailgate release will be moved to the left side of the car

just under this sensor right here

Now I really like getting in and out of the car - it's really convenient

It's not too tall like the XC90, but just about nice enough for everybody to get in and out of

It's really convenient - Volvo says it's because of this under wrap door

design which makes the lower portion of the car here much thinner hence the convenience

It's great for older people too, except that the rear doors

don't open as wide as it should - shame

In here as you can probably already tell is quite swanky and veers towards the minimalistic side of things

unlike the old car with the chock full of buttons, the dash here looks really nice

very neat and also very classy The only physical controls on the dash

are for the media, front and rear defoggers and emergency signal

Everything else is digitised into this 9-inch Sensus Connect touchscreen display including

the dual-zone climate control With this you can access just about every feature

that comes with the car such as the active safety features, 360-degree

all-round view camera, head-up display adjustment and even the entire owners manual

Good luck with that!

The dashboard design as a whole probably won't impress

those who prefer the German way of interior designing but I think this

approach will age a little better Quality wise it's right up there among

the best in its class although I think new Audi Q5 which is not here yet by the way

still takes the cake for the best overall build quality

If you know Volvo then things like this little Swedish flag on the edge of the seat is a given

but here they've gone a step further by putting it into the chrome strip which

outlines the metal mesh trim and if you find this combination a little bit too

bland or not contrasty enough then I suggest you go with the open pore Driftwood trim

In other markets you get a choice of a two-tone interior

The top part black and the bottom part white Personally I like that the most compared

to this all-black theme that we have here in this press unit simply because it's

more luxurious that way but at least Volvo is offering a maroon brown option for the seats

Speaking of seats it's unfortunate that we don't get nappa leather

settling instead with this regular leather seats

It's not bad but it's not impressive either, plus the grain on the

leather makes it look rather cheap Comfort wise it's supportive in all the

right areas and there's even an extendable thigh support for both seats

Over to the center this entire portion looks as though it's been

lifted off the XC90 and only the Inscription trim comes with this

electronic glass gear shifter The T5 Momentum will get the regular stick type

Oh an interesting thing I learned is that this steering wheel

is actually the R-Design steering wheel and there's perforation

on the sides and also explains why there're paddle shifters as well

The only thing missing is the R-Design badge down here

But you know what I really really like about this car? It's this 15-speaker Bowers & Wilkins sound system

It is literally hands-down the best sound system in its class and it's only

available if you choose the Inscription Plus trim - one way of telling if your car

comes with it is through this speaker this tweeter actually, from the top and

the yellow diaphragm in the speakers right here

I'm not kidding guys, this stuff is really the bomb and if you play lossless audio files through this USB port

right here you'll be able to hear every layer of a song and the instruments that make it

Just get it

Back here I've got the driver seat adjusted to my driving position

and as you can clearly tell there's lots of legroom, good headroom

and decent visibility out There's only one air vent built into each side of the

B-pillars right here and I don't quite like how cheap it feels

And if you're a restless guy like I am who fidgets a lot during a long-distance drive this narrow

foot well can be a little bit of a problem but otherwise I think it's pretty livable

There's no booster seats back here, just a couple of ISOFIX anchor mounts

plus a nice little storage area for you to keep your phone underneath

your seats away from prying eyes

For practicality the XC60's boot space is 505 litres large That's only about 10 litres larger than the older model

but still quite a bit smaller than the Mercedes-Benz GLC and upcoming BMW X3

Ilike the fact that the seats can be electrically folded if you need more space

to lug your stuff around and the models with the air suspension get the

option of manually raising or lowering the boot height

Underneath the boot floor you will find a tyre repair kit and no, this car does not run on run flat tyres

Before we start talking about the driving experience let's first talk

about the engine under the hood Primary propulsion comes from a 2.0 litre

four-cylinder engine that's turbocharged and supercharged to produce 320 hp

and 400 Nm of torque That alone is more powerful than

most of its rivals in the class so that really says something and on top of that

there's an electric motor mounted over the rear axle producing 87 hp

and 240 Nm of torque Together the plug-in hybrid system makes about

407 hp and 640 Nm of torque That's a lot a lot of power on paper

but it doesn't really feel like it because the very nature of this car is

supposed to be as fuel efficient as possible instead of chasing down some

Mercedes-AMGs or some sports cars But the power is there as a really nice bonus

The cool thing is you know that the car is capable, you know that it can

do 5.3 seconds to the 100, but when you're cocooned in this much luxury you just

lose all the care in the world - you don't want to speed so much in a car like this

but it's good to know that it can I spent about 4 days with the car

and every night I leave it to charge around 7 to 8 hours to get a full charge

just to be safe - Volvo says depending on the charging output when you get 2 to 7

hours but I just leave it overnight because that's my routine and Volvo says

you can get 45 km on a full charge Realistically though, I'm getting

35 and the instrument meter here the battery gauge in fact is pretty accurate

Now I believe the discrepancy has a lot to do with the car's weight because this

thing weighs 2.1-tonnes But if you ask me whether I feel the

weight driving this car around, honestly I don't because it's really powerful

The easiest way of telling whether your engine is alive or not is to turn your audio down

and even then sometimes I find it difficult to tell because it's just

really quiet and then is a mark of a well-made plug-in hybrid system

After spending so much time with the car I find that the 8-speed automatic

transmission still has some way to go before it's properly fluid in the

way of gear shifts - I think the gearing ratio can be adjusted to make full use

of the power band and it's not quite BMW in a sense but it would be perfect if it is

Another thing I don't quite like about the car is braking feel and

honestly I feel that it's one of the car's weakest links - it's a real

challenge to modulate the brake pressure it's either I brake too little or too much

it's very difficult to get that sweet spot and it can be very annoying

when you're in stop and go traffic And sometimes when you brake you get a lot

of oscillating movements especially when you want to park your car and you feel

that there's a little bit more space for you to drive upfront

You know it's funny how Honda can do such a wonderful job with the City and Jazz Hybrid

So Volvo I honestly think and feel that you

should do something about this - you should pay a little bit more attention

to the braking department But having said that it's considerably better than

the XC90 so there is some progress to give Volvo some credit

In terms of steering, there's not much feedback at all from the road but it's not unusual

because it's a Volvo after all and honestly it doesn't bother me as much

the turning radius is actually pretty decent

despite riding on 19-inch wheels so that bit got me a little bit surprised

as for ride quality this car is fairly comfortable - we have a hump coming up here and

yeah damping is not too bad - it absorbs the bump really well and based on

previous experiences models with the air suspension will tend to be a little bit

more plushy compared to the dynamic chassis that will come with the CKD versions

The downside to this is that like I said earlier you get a lot of

rocking motions so I guess it takes some getting used to

The body tends to roll a fair bit more at higher speeds compared to the Mercedes-Benz GLC

but not at the expense of traction so that's not a cause for concern

the CKD versions will not get air suspension at all no matter which model

you choose, not even the top trim so the ride will be stiffer but we really have

to drive that first just to be sure Last but certainly not least is the safety system

It's the whole deal and you get everything Volvo has to offer including

my favorite Pilot Assist system - simply click on the button here on the left

side of the steering wheel and what it does is it basically drives on its own

at speeds of up to 130 km/h and it can even steer for you if you've got the

lane keeping system on It's quite literally the best thing ever and it's

gonna make all that long-distance driving a lot more pleasant, a lot more

convenient and a whole lot less tiring Just think of Pilot Assist as a more

advanced version of adaptive cruise control and you won't be far off

speaking of which this car also gets adaptive cruise control

By the way the Pilot Assist feature that's available on the Mercedes-Benz S-Class

and BMW 7 Series and granted its smoother on them both

but they're not really in this price range and category are they?

The very fact that Volvo has decided to put Pilot Assist in a car like this and in a price range like this

is commendable and I don't think any other SUVs out there has this feature

Nevermind SUVs not even cars

To top it all off, there's other stuff like City Safety, pedestrians, cyclists and large animal detection

as well as blind spot monitoring

So at the end of the day the XC60 T8 Twin Engine packs a lot of power

a lot of safety tech and a lot of style That's a lot for you to consider and rightfully so

because I think in my opinion the car is a lovely place to be in and if I had

to choose it would be this over the Mercedes-Benz GLC

But it's also worth knowing that this car is 20% more expensive than the GLC 250 but this has

the added advantage of a plug-in hybrid system, at least until the GLC 350e comes along

The good news is the CKD versions will be rolled out in April and pricing

for that starts from RM298,888 for the T5 Momentum

to RM343,888 for this version, minus the air suspension

For that kind of money what car would you rather buy?

That's all for this round of review - thank you for watching, this has been Matthew

and I will see you in the next one