Used Volvo V90 PHEV Ownership Update: Costs, Efficiency And Annoyances

Plug-in hybrids are either the best of both worlds or the worst of both worlds, depending on who you ask. If you ask me, I’ll tell you that it makes a lot of sense to replace an old combustion car with a PHEV—if you can charge it every day.

That’s what I did, at least. For the last two months and a little over 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers), I’ve been driving a used 2023 Volvo V90 T8 Recharge, which replaced two cars, both of which were getting a bit long in the tooth: a 2001 Volkswagen Golf and a 2006 Land Rover LR3 with a diesel engine.

Photo by: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs

I still own both of them, but the 20-year-olds have been sidelined until I figure out what to do with them. For me, this has worked like a charm. I don’t need to repair something every month to keep it running, and my fuel bills have gone down considerably.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t go for an all-electric wagon, I explained it all in my initial story. But to quickly recap, I couldn’t afford a Volkswagen ID.7 Tourer, and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 weren’t big enough for me and my family. Nothing else really tickled my fancy, so I went with the surprise candidate from Volvo, which turned out to be a great solution for my use.

I’ll get the basic specs out of the way first if you need a refresher. The latest version of the Volvo V90 T8 Recharge shares its underpinnings with the XC60 and XC90. It’s powered by a turbocharged 2.0-liter engine that works either on its own or in tandem with an electric motor on the rear axle. In total, the car makes 455 horsepower, making it the most powerful car I have ever owned.

There are a lot of small changes under the skin, and I’ve covered all of them in my initial report, but here’s the gist of it: it’s a more powerful, simpler machine than before. Also, the old Sensus infotainment system was replaced with Android Automotive OS, which offers native Android apps like Google Maps and Spotify, but it’s still not perfect.

Volvo V90 PHEV: Costs and Efficiency

I use my car every day to drive the kids to school and back home, and also for long road trips. I drive at least 35 miles daily. In my diesel Land Rover, this meant I had to fill up at least twice a month, and the fuel economy was around 21 miles per gallon. In the even older Volkswagen Golf, I got around 29 mpg.

Now, with the Volvo, my refueling costs are dramatically lower. For daily driving, I run on electricity most of the time, so refueling costs are half what the Golf was, and four times less than what I used to pay for diesel for the Land Rover. And that’s without solar panels, which I plan on installing by the end of the year.

Photo by: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs

That said, there’s also some gasoline involved here, too, but it’s far less than before. In the 3,100 miles that I’ve driven so far, I’ve put just 44 gallons of premium gas in the V90, which has an overall real-world fuel economy of 50 mpg.

Like I said, I do most of my driving on electricity, which is cheaper than gas where I live, but when I go on a road trip, the combustion engine will inevitably turn on. Even so, when the battery is dead, I’ll still get about 34 mpg.

The electric driving efficiency has also been pretty good so far, with an overall average of 3.65 miles/kWh (17 kWh/100 km)., But bear in mind that both the electric efficiency and the fuel economy have to be considered together. When the gas engine isn’t running, fuel economy goes down; when it is running, the electric efficiency goes up.

Real-world electric range

Officially, the V90 T8 Recharge can go up to 54 miles (88 kilometers) on a full charge on the WLTP cycle. After driving it for two months, I can confidently say that that figure is perfectly doable in the real world. 

On a typical day, the range meter shows around 47 miles, but my personal best is better than what Volvo ever imagined. On a warm day, with five people inside and a full trunk, I managed to squeeze out 71 miles (114 km) from the battery before the gas engine kicked in for the first time. The ambient temperature was around 75 degrees F (24 degrees C), and the average speed was 37 mph (60 kph), which is rather low, but it was a busier-than-usual day, so that’s what I got.

Photo by: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs

The car’s electric range is plenty useful for someone like me, but I suspect there’s some trickery involved. Volvo says the usable capacity of the battery is 14.9 kWh, but I don’t think that’s true. See, I use a smart plug to monitor how much energy I’m putting into my PHEV, and a full charge is rarely 14.9 kWh. The maximum I saw was 18 kWh, which means the car’s brain is a lot more flexible in using as much of the whole battery as possible.

Annoyances

Growing up in post-communist Romania, I’m not a stranger to fake buttons. But I never imagined that a car that cost $100,000 when new could have something like this. There are three buttons that don’t do anything, but I think the main character here is the left arrow on the left side of the steering wheel. 

It clicks, but it serves no purpose because you only have to use the right arrow to toggle between the regular adaptive cruise control and what Volvo calls Pilot Assist.

Photo by: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs

Photo by: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs

Photo by: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs

The other fake button is on the center console, and it’s just a dash. On the XC90, this would be where you would press to open the glovebox, but the V90 has a traditional lever to open it. Then, there’s the front fog light button on the left stalk, which serves no purpose because the T8 Recharge can’t even be specced with front fog lights. (There’s a cooling duct for the high-voltage battery on the right side of the bumper.)

The car likes to freak out when I’m backing up, and it detects that a car or a person might hit it. Even when there’s well over three feet of space between the rear of the car and the potential threat, it still slams on the brakes.

Photo by: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs

It can be turned off, but it takes three screen taps to do that, and it reactivates automatically the next time I go into Reverse. I know it’s useful and it can potentially save my ass from a crash, but I wish it was a little less overzealous.

The car has multiple drive modes, and I like to do most of my driving in Pure mode. This only uses electricity, and it allows the car to coast when the accelerator pedal is not pressed.

However, the car starts in Hybrid mode every single time, which isn’t the end of the world because it trades coasting for light regenerative braking and uses a little more energy to run the A/C. The problem is that I have to tap three times on the screen to get to Pure mode every time I start up. And then three more taps when I want to enable the Power mode, if I want to overtake.

Photo by: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs

That’s just annoying. Volvos used to have a physical toggle wheel for the drive modes, but since the 2023 model year, that was yanked out. At one point, the software had a toggle that allowed the driver to start in Pure mode instead of Hybrid, but that went away with one of the Android Automotive OS software updates.

Volvo, if you’re reading this, find a way to implement a digital shortcut for the drive modes. And no, voice commands don’t work either.

Despite using Google’s voice assistant, the range of voice commands in the 2023 Volvo V90 is quite limited. I can change the climate control temperature and start playing a specific genre of music on Spotify. It’s also possible to input a destination in Google Maps. But that’s about it.

There’s no control over the windows, panoramic roof or vehicle settings. To make matters worse, you need to know what to say to get results. For instance, saying “Turn the climate control off” won’t actually turn off the automatic climate function. So I need to say “Turn off the fan” to get it to work.

When washing the car with a pressure washer, the central locking will get a mind of its own, locking and unlocking the doors repeatedly. This happens when I have the key in my pocket.

It’s not a big deal, but I did disable the automatically folding mirrors because of this behavior to try and give the built-in motors a break.

Photo by: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs

Both my old cars had excellent turning circles. The Volvo V90, however, does not. Before, I was able to back up into my yard from the street and go into the garage in a single move. Now, I need to do an extra maneuver to make it work.

Overall, these are niggles more than anything else, and none of them affect the driving experience too much. (Except for the lack of drive mode–get that fixed, Volvo.)

Likes

Despite the niggles, I still enjoy this car immensely. It has decent efficiency and, at the same time, is massively powerful. It offers a serene driving experience, with a silent cabin, some of the most comfortable seats in the industry, a well-tuned suspension, and it does it all flying under the radar. Also, the kids love it, and that’s always a great bonus.

Nobody knows what this car is, except for a handful of Volvo enthusiasts. I love that.

2023 Volvo V90 T8 Recharge Plug-In Hybrid

Photo by: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs

Reliability

So far, I have nothing to report on reliability. Everything is working great, there are no rattles, no squeaks, and no software issues. That said, I know there are Volvo owners out there who have had worse experiences.

I’m due for an oil change sometime this summer, despite the gas engine rarely running. I’m also going to change the transmission fluid and rear differential fluid. I know Volvo doesn’t recommend these maintenance items, but I know that it can’t hurt, especially when it comes to the rear differential, which has tended to go boom on older models.

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Source: Iulian Dnistran / InsideEVs