Wife wants a VOLVO, I'm going to suggest a Tesla.

[outdoordawg]

Perhaps ask your Wife some questions.

Does she like going to gas stations.
Does she like paying for premium fuel.
Does she like taking the car in twice a year for oil changes.
Does she enjoy the lag when pressing the accelerator pedal.
Does she like the noise a car makes when standing near the motor.
Does she like polluting the atmosphere.
Does she like supporting big oil companies,
Does she like taking the car in for tune ups.
Does she want a car with poor Consumer Reports evaluation.
Does she want a foreign made car or USA built.
Does she mind carrying around 20 gallons of inflamable gasoline.
Does she realize that just leaving a ICE car idling in at garage can kill people.
Does she like pumping gas at dangerous gas stations. Being accosted by pan handlers and squeegie guys.

Might make her at least think about going electric.

That's it! Just replace the wife. My wife drives a V8 Lexus and will never consider drive anything else.

 

[acarney]

My wife has seen me in my Model 3 for nearly 2 years now, and she loves her butt warmer (seat heater) when she's in the car. But she's had it in her head for a few years now that she wants a Volvo XC90, XC60, or XC40, despite never having even test driven one.

She's not a technical type, and although she could learn the nuances of a Tesla, she's weird about stuff like that. If she doesn't want to do it all on her own, it'll be tough to change her mind.

I already have the charging setup in the driveway. She wouldn't be in a VOLVO. And no more paying for gasoline and the taxes on it, at least until PA adds a registration fee.

Any ideas to steer her in the right direction? My guess is that she would want a base 3 SR+ in blue paint color.

If she has zero plans to learn the in's and out's of a Tesla, get her a long range Model 3. She could very much end up with half the range in the winter time (if she turns the heat up to 74F because she like "hot air" on her feet or something and uses seat heaters, etc). The SR+ could be down to like 120 miles range (at like 50 mph) and more like ~95 miles if you observe the 10% to 90% battery window to improve longevity. Now will it always be like that, no, this is very extreme, but for someone that isn't paying attention at all, makes a few short trips and lets the heat blast, has winter tires on, etc, it totally could get down to this.

The Volvo won't have the same issue. It might take a little longer to warm up, but she'll just remote start it while she's at work or in the store or something and let it run 5 to 10 minutes in the parking lot. Drive 10 miles or something and get out and the car will cool back down. Repeat the above. Use it burns gas, but she'll still have at minimum a 200 mile range on a gas tank that large AND it's 5 minutes to fill it back up. Make it a bullet proof "can't screw it up" thing and go long range.

Other than that, I doubt she would have too much issues with learning to drive it. Even if she never used AP or anything she probably would be fine in it and the sat nav actually is probably easier than other cars. Road trips might be a pain for her (again you need to think about mountains, standing water on the freeway or heavy rain/wind. The car does a decent job estimating range, but can be 20%+ off with estimates based on weather....) but how often does she go for a 100+ mile trip without you?

One final option might be getting a XC90 or XC60 Plug In hybrid. They're not ideal, but for someone that will pay zero mind to plugging in and making sure they have enough charge to go somewhere, etc, it might be a good in-between. Should be good for about 17 miles battery only on the XC60 and "more than 17" on the XC90. Maybe that gets her to work every day? It's a way to cut down on the gas... and some people you just can't force into the electric mindset. This is one of the big reasons I think we need 400+ mile ranges and at least 200+ miles in the winter with the heat set high (think 74F or something). It's doable right now and can be absolutely great, but you have people that will want the windows down a little on a winter day to get brisk air in but hot air blasting at their feet and stuff like that. EV's right now still get absolutely killed with stuff like that.

 

[Uncle Paul]

As far as speed to filling, hard to beat an ICE.

Driving a V8 Lexus is a great luxury, Hard to be denied

Doing so is probably short sighted, but...oh well...

 

[timk225]

I'm formulating The Plan.

The Volvo dealer is a quarter mile down the road from the local Tesla SC, along with Lexus and Maserati dealers. If at all possible, by the time this happens, Model Y's will be available for test drives. I'll schedule her for that, then go to the Volvo dealer right after.

Ultimately, I won't try to push her very much, I'll just suggest that she consider a Tesla along with the Volvos.

 

[AZjohnInCA]

Hell, I had to explain to my wife we just need to move on in to the 2020’s and have fun trying something new with plenty technology (she never had a car with a backup camera before).

She was excited at ordering her options but that quickly went away between order and getting the delayed delivery.


Once she got hers she had a dozen questions a day what this and that is.
By week 2 she stared me in the face and said “I love my new car”

Today, I’m the one asking the technical questions to her, she knows a hell of a lot more than I do

 

[TLej]

I'm formulating The Plan.

The Volvo dealer is a quarter mile down the road from the local Tesla SC, along with Lexus and Maserati dealers. If at all possible, by the time this happens, Model Y's will be available for test drives. I'll schedule her for that, then go to the Volvo dealer right after.

Ultimately, I won't try to push her very much, I'll just suggest that she consider a Tesla along with the Volvos.

My wife has a 2018 XC60 and likes it a lot, but it's a bit of a pig on (premium) gas especially in the winter and has needed a lot of service work (all warranty so far, but still...). We leased her car since I didn't want to get stuck with an ICE over the long term, and when her lease is up in another year we'll be looking at a Y or maybe a (gently) used X. She has seen how little maintenance my car has required, and how the ranger service works (we don't have a service center in our city), and likes a lot of things about my car but not the price and not how low she sits in it. I was never going to buy the Volvo because it is a small-displacement engine that is both turbo- and super-charged, which sounds to me like a nightmare waiting to happen once it's out of warranty.

The Volvo has a nice interior and the Sensus interface is decent for a non-Tesla, but it is slow and laggy to respond and doesn't have the resolution on the maps that my car has. I have heard they've upgraded the Sensus computer in more recent model years so that might be better. The sunroof is big and has a power retractable sun shade, the ambient lighting can be changed to many different colours, and it has an app that lets her do things like remote start. The remote fold-down seats in the second row are pretty nice too. We got the Volvo because it was the closest thing we could find to a Tesla in terms of technology and safety, but at half the cost of an X. Now that my S is paid-for, a new X might be possible but would still be a stretch for us financially and hopefully the Y is going to fit the bill.

If Volvo made an EV version of the V90 that got Tesla-like range (and had an extensive charging system for road trips), I'd be all over it - that car is gorgeous in my books.