Volvos Are Winter Weather Warriors

With the exception of those lucky residents of British Columbia, Canadians have endured one heck of a winter this year. It’s been particularly cold and snowy, even in Southern Ontario, where winters had become increasingly tame in the past decade.

On the one hand, most Canadians are anticipating spring’s arrival even more impatiently this year than usual. On the other hand, these wild conditions have shown just how challenged or adept some vehicles are in the winter. While some cars I have tested recently have proven to be downright frightening (like the way the Audi A6 eTron’s automated safety system spasmed at the sight of a partly snow-covered highway lane), others, like the Volvo V60 Cross Country reviewed during one of this year’s many storms, are so sure-footed and stable, it makes a driver believe they can tackle anything winter throws at us. With Volvo’s Gothenburg headquarters located at the same 58th parallel as Churchill, Man., (a place known as the polar bear capital), it seems the Swedish heritage has helped reinforce the importance of a car that can manage the far north.

Comfy and Cozy

As if to flex their winter-weather prowess, the folks from Volvo recently hosted an event in very snowy Quebec to showcase just how good their cars and crossovers are here in the Great White North. What has become apparent is that Volvos make good winter warriors not because of common features like all-wheel drive (AWD) or heated steering wheels, but the collective way all these features are executed and how they work together.

When we’re cold, our muscles tense up and then relax rapidly, causing us to shiver to generate heat and protect our vital organs. It takes energy to do so, and is exactly why it feels so relaxing to sit in a nice warm spot and “thaw out” if we’ve been chilled. Heated seats and steering wheels are commonplace throughout the auto industry now, but they’re not all created equally. In many cars, if you’re wearing a coat and gloves, you’ll feel minimal warmth from the typically tepid heating elements. Not so in a Volvo, whose seats on their full-heat setting feel like they may leave grille marks on your posterior or hands. While this is obviously an exaggeration, that they deliver proper heat and not just a mild warming is welcome for anyone who’s really cold.

The seats themselves, in every Volvo we can recall, have been broad and comfortable, allowing for space to sit, even with the aforementioned coat on. Plus, the HVAC systems come up to temperature sooner than in some other cars and blow much warmer air more quickly.

In Volvo’s newer models, the extensive use of ambient LED lighting is not just decorative; it’s done in such a way to help stave off the gloom of long dark days in the far north.

Clever Engineering

Volvo’s engineers have clearly experienced a winter or two, and it shows in a few areas around their cars. For instance, there are no specific washer nozzles mounted to the hood or at the base of the windshield, where they may get clogged with snow or ice. Instead, a fluid line runs along the wiper arm and dispenses a swath of washer fluid along the wiper blade itself. This not only helps the fluid reach the windshield more quickly and consistently, but also creates a broad, effective cleaning stroke as soon as the wiper is in motion.

During a very cold Quebec trail drive with the XC90, snow was repeatedly kicked up from the vehicles ahead, melting on the windshield and wiper arms, and creating a crusty and compromised view forward. While not fitted to our test vehicle, an optional heated windshield presents a matrix of extremely fine heating elements embedded in the glass to prevent icing up, a feature that would’ve been really useful here.

In the past, Volvo offered little headlight wipers that eventually disappeared for aerodynamic reasons. Even still, the company continues to offer headlight washer units that fire powerful jets of washer fluid onto the headlights to help clearly cast their beam.

While there’s now a trend among many automakers to illuminate their front badges, Volvo has instead opted to heat theirs, since many of the active safety sensors reside behind the badge. This is important because advanced safety features are rendered useless if snow or ice collects on the sensors, and indeed, during our test drive on the snowy trails, we received no warnings that the systems were compromised.

Control and Driveability

Every automotive company goes through cold-weather testing, but Volvo claims to test every system for uncompromised operation at both -20 and + 20 degrees Celsius. This not only helps illustrate why the advanced driver aids continue to work in snowy conditions, but also how Volvos don’t typically have the same sort of squeaks and groans and stiffness that many cars present when the temperatures plummet.

Volvo has utilized all-wheel drive for many years, with the current system found in its gasoline-powered and hybrid vehicles favouring front-wheel-drive propulsion until slippage is detected, and then power is redirected to the rear wheels. While this may seem like an inferior setup to permanent or full-time AWD systems such as the one employed by Subaru, Volvo has programmed its system in cold conditions, and if ice or snow is detected, it pre-emptively engages all-wheel drive. Similarly, the driver can also select a button that switches on the AWD system and keeps all four wheels powered to help maintain stability and control in particularly nasty winter (or muddy) conditions. During our forest drive, the system delivered as promised, and with an excellent set of winter tires fitted, the XC90 never missed a beat, even on some very slippery trails.

Volvo’s move toward a largely electrified model lineup has meant implementing battery pre-conditioning by way of a heat pump that helps optimize the battery temperature for high-speed charging. It’s also adopted a new all-wheel-drive system where dual front and rear motors can constantly adapt to apportion power where it is best utilized.

A 2.8-kilometre ice track was carved into the frozen Ottawa River near Montebello where we were able to experience the EX30 Cross Country in a safe way at the car’s limits. Having never before tried full one-pedal driving in low-traction situation, the EX30 Cross Country thoroughly impressed for its ability to distribute its considerable power (422 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque) in a completely manageable way. It was very easy to grow accustomed to utilizing the motor’s energy regeneration, rather than the brakes, except when we really got barrelling down one of the two longer straights, before flinging the little Volvo into the next corner. Measuring out precise helpings of just-enough power meant making the most of the limited grip, and then scrambling ahead with surprising thrust as soon as the studded tires made purchase with the frozen river.

Final Thoughts

Finding companies that proclaim their vehicles to be ideally suited to the Canadian climate is not difficult, but simply offering heated comforts, or all-wheel-drive systems does not necessarily produce the same results that Volvo gets from its models when winter really sets in. With several decades of engineering machines designed to thrive in Scandinavian winters under its belt, Volvo consistently produces cars and crossovers that are not only comfortable in the cold, but offer better balance and control in the slippery stuff than many of their competitors.