Long-term test car review: Volvo XC60 T8 R-Design Pro

The Volvo XC60 T8 R-Design Pro has so many features it's difficult to know where to start.

The technology available to new car buyers today is astounding. Premium brands are leading the way with levels of occupant comfort and safety that were unimaginable when I was a car-mad student 25 years ago.

We’ve just taken delivery of a Volvo XC60 T8 plug-in hybrid, which we’ll review over the next six months. In R-Design Pro specification, this car potentially gives Volvo salespeople a dilemma, but in a good way. Explaining all the features and benefits would take considerable time, which is why the skill of qualifying the customer’s specific needs and their prior knowledge of the car becomes critical.

Ignoring the elementary stuff, our XC60 R-Design Pro has more than 60 items of specification as standard, before the option packs are added. I’ll go into more detail on its raft of features next issue, but, in summary, this SUV is a complete premium package as befits its near £66,000 price tag.

I’d suggest there’s a real opportunity for Volvo dealers to cement the relationship and impress purchasers of this car by making contact three or four weeks after handover with a “just checking you’ve remembered feature X and Y” enquiry. While many functions in this car are intuitive, there are a few that drivers might miss.

My belief is that plug-ins should be plugged in, and charging the XC60 T8 daily is an easy task. Buyers even get a year of free electricity from Volvo. Yet I went a couple of weeks before recalling there’s a function to ‘hold’ the charge in the electric battery while on fast A-roads so I can use zero-emission power later when I’m back in an urban environment.