New Volvo ReCharge Concept Car

Published Date: 21st Sep 2007

Volvo is introducing a concept car at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September – a Volvo C30 hybrid called the ReCharge Concept which can be plugged in to mains electricity.

Volvo claim that this will allow the car to do 62 miles on the electricity alone because of lithium-polymer batteries which power 4 electric motors – one for each wheel. However, it currently takes 3 hours to fully charge it via a mains electricity supply, or it can be recharged using the Volvo’s 1.6litre flexi-fuel combustion engine.

Volvo claims that this new concept C30 produces 66% lower carbon emissions than the best hybrids currently available – like the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic Hybrid. The petrol engine is only used to charge the batteries to provide power for the electric motors. Therefore the C30 ReCharge is always powered by electricity. Once 70% of the battery’s charge is used up the engine automatically kicks in to start to recharge the battery and run the car.

The new C30 hybrid can reach 100mph and can do 0-62mph in 9 seconds. Volvo say that someone driving less than 60 miles per day would rarely need to use a petrol station, providing very cheap motoring.

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