400 Horsepower Volvo XC90 T8 PHEV Gets Official

Until now, the combination of the Volvo XC90 luxury crossover and 450 horsepower Twin Engine plug-in hybrid drivetrain was winked at, but not made official. The 400 horsepower Volvo XC90 T8 plug-hybrid crossover is officially official, allowing you to haul ass between soccer games and the grocery store with minimal environmental impact.

There’s plenty of appetite for the XC90, with the top-of-the-line First Edition selling out in less than two days. Those who jumped on the First Edition got a 320 horsepower Drive-E turbocharged four-cylinder gas engine, but buyers with a bit more patience can also get an 80 horsepower electric motor added to the rear wheels, bringing total output to 400 ponies. While not quite as much as the 450 horsepower produced by a triple-charged Drive-E prototype engine, it’s still enough twist to put the XC90 T8 in a class of its own.

Feeling guilty for having so much fun? Well don’t as Volvo predicts a 59 MPGe rating, and claims 25 miles of all-electric driving before the gas engine kicks in. Hopefully Volvo will allow buyers to combine the Twin Engine drivetrain with the R Design package, which adds a bit more sport to the XC90. Even better will be when tuning house Polestar gets a chance to tweak and tune the plug-in crossover.

While plans for a sexy Volvo coupe have been put on hold, I can’t help but imagine combining that sleek design with this potent hybrid drivetrain. The XC90 is pretty sexy as far as crossovers go, but this drivetrain is begging for a sports car body to support its performance ambitions.

2015 Volvo S60 Hybrid Bows in Beijing

Volvo gave its bread-and-butter S60 sedan a major update for 2014 already, what with visual updates the classed up the car’s headlights and the introduction of the small- but powerful!- Volvo Drive E engines. One thing we didn’t get for 2014, however, was a gas-electric hybrid … but Volvo is set to fill that gap in its product line with the car you see here: the new-for-2015 Volvo S60 Hybrid.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re reading this and saying, “Hey- Volvo already makes a hybrid, they just don’t sell it in the US.” The problem is that you’re only kinda right.

Volvo does, in fact, offer a plug-in hybrid version of its S60-based V60 wagon. That product is a huge seller in Europe, but it’s not a gasoline-electric hybrid- it’s a diesel. And, if you’re an OEM, you believe that diesel cars don’t sell in the US and, crucially, China. The Volvo S60 Hybrid shown here, then, isn’t a Europe-only diesel. It’s a 302 HP gas-fueled hybrid that will be old in China and, if all goes well, in the US by 2015.

The all-wheel-drive hybrid setup that Volvo is revealing in Beijing next week is similar in concept to the one shown last year in the company’s XC60 Hybrid Concept, with an internal-combustion engine powering the front wheels while an electric drive unit powers the rear. The setup allowed for serious acceleration in the heavier XC60 (0-60 in 5.8 seconds), and fits under the S60 well enough that Volvo included a picture of its new hybrid’s flat trunk …

… which is a trick that, somehow, eluded Volvo’s former masters at Ford.

The 2015 Volvo S60 Hybrid is claimed to get fuel economy in the 2.0 liters/100 km range (115-ish MPGe). When you combine that with exhilarating acceleration,Apple’s new CarPlay, and Volvo’s industry-leading safety, and you gotta think Volvo has built themselves a winner.

Source | Photos: Volvo