The Complete Volvo Buying Guide: Every Model, Explained

The Volvo Car Corporation is a Swedish car manufacturer. The company started building cars in 1927 as a subsidiary of the Swedish corporation AB Volvo. (Volvo means “I roll” in Latin; initially, it actually referenced the company’s ball bearings.) The company began exporting cars to the U.S. in the 1950s, then fleshed out a lineup of family sedans and wagons in the 1960s and 1970s.

Since its inception, Volvo’s hallmark has been safety. The three-point seatbelt, introduced by Volvo in 1959, may be the most important life-saving innovation in automotive history. Volvo also pioneered features like crumple zones, side-impact protection and collapsible steering columns. Today, the company remains at the forefront of accident prevention and mitigation technology; to give you a sense just how audacious they are, remember that this is the company that set a goal of eliminating all fatalities in its cars by 2020.

Over recent decades, the brand has steadily moved upmarket. Ford bought Volvo from its parent company in 1999, merging it into what it called the "Premier Automotive Group" along with Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover. When that strategy didn't work quite as hoped due to myriad reasons, FoMoCo sold Volvo to Chinese company Geely in 2010. Volvo bought independent tuner Polestar Performance in 2015, and currently releases both Polestar-branded Volvos and electric cars under the Polestar brand name.

Model Nomenclature

Old-school Volvos from the 1960s to the early 1990s used a three-digit number designation for their names. Generally, the first number represented the series number, the second number revealed the number of engine cylinders and the third number — used either externally or internally — denoted the number of doors. So, the Volvo 244 was, initially, the brand's second vehicle, with a four-cylinder engine and four doors.

Powertrains

Volvo

Volvo is in the process of converting its entire lineup to electric powertrains. The brand intends EVs to represent half of its sales by 2025. Even by non-EV standards, though, the brand has a simple engine lineup compared to other manufacturers — all combustion engines are based on a 2.0-liter four-cylinder — but manages to elicit as much confusion as possible with its naming conventions. The lineup is as follows.

T4: turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four with 181 horsepower and 221 lb-ft of torque; front-wheel drive only
T5: turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four with 250 horsepower and 258 lb-ft; FWD or all-wheel drive
T6: turbocharged and supercharged 2.0-liter inline-four with 316 hp and 295 lb-ft; AWD only
T8: the T6 engine, plus two electric motors for a combined 400 hp and 472 lb-ft; Volvo also terms this "T8 eAWD" or "Recharge plug-in hybrid"
Polestar: performance-tuned plug-in hybrid with 415 hp and 494 lb-ft
Recharge Pure Electric: full-electric powertrain offering 402 hp and 486 lb-ft

Trim Levels

Volvo has pared down its trim lineup in recent years. There are basically three trim levels: Momentum is the base model; R-Design is a sportier design trim; Inscription is the luxury trim. The S60, V60 and XC60 also have high-performance Polestar Engineered trims with the 415 hp plug-in hybrid. The V60 and V90 wagons offer Cross Country versions with raised suspensions, cladding and a softer tuned suspension.