Volvo binned the diesel engine some time ago, with V60s now being offered either as B4 petrols, like this one, which is a range-topping £48,070 Ultra, or T6 plug-in hybrids. The reintroduced V90 comes as a plug-in hybrid only.
So the engine here is a mildly hybridised built for mooching but really quite lithe by today’s standards 2.0-litre inline four making 197bhp and 221lb ft, driving through a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox (rather than the eight-speed torque-converter auto of earlier diesels, as our 2018 road test V60 was).
There are still no steering wheel paddles, though, and although the gears are occasionally hesitant to really get going from a standstill, that’s something I really don’t mind: it would seem odd to have flappy paddles in a car as moochy as this: as soon as you’re moving along the engine fades to inaudibility.
Rolling comfort is good given that the V60 runs on 235/40 R19 tyres, which are the only option, as far as I can tell, and while Volvos have never been the sportiest cars in their classes (and they’re all the better for it), in a world of two-plus-tonne wagons, driving something that’s 1.44m tall and which weighs 1734kg brings with it a sense of lightness and agility, relatively speaking: it’s almost 700kg lighter than the BMW i5, for instance.
It’s half a tonne lighter than a Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, too. This stuff, ultimately, matters. The mild hybridisation means I managed as near as darnit 40mpg, which isn’t a figure that gets people sending postcards home these days, but it’s as good a number as we got from our diesel road test V60 back in 2018.
