VehicleVoice

Once in a while, there is an opportunity to drive the same vehicle in England as in the USA. I recently had the opportunity to drive a Volvo XC90 Sport with V8 in England. My daily driver happens to be a Volvo XC90 Volvo Ocean Race V8. So with the exception of some cosmetic tweaks and right hand drive, the English example was about as close to my Volvo in the USA as it could be. While you couldn’t lose the brilliant red XC90 in the parking lot, its “colour” did not seem to garner much respect from other cars on the road. But driving the XC90 for ten days in England certainly does bring home the differences in the driving environment.

Right Size in USA – Titanic in Britain
In the USA, the Volvo XC90 is surely a Luxury Crossover Sport Utility Vehicle, but in Britain it is a Chelsea tractor open to sneers and ridicule by the hoi polloi. In some places, there are restrictions on driving vehicles like this in the city center. In the USA, the XC90 is the right size. In Britain, it is huge having to hug the shoulder of the road to let a Daewoo Matiz micro mini squeeze by. How many times did I feel like I was going mirror-to-mirror with approaching traffic? Many!
Having a discussion with an elderly gentleman in Henley, he said to count the number of 4x4s driven by women. As in the USA, the proportion of female drivers was as high or higher than males. As in the USA, these vehicles have become the suburban transportation for children. Safe, secure, somewhat ostentatious, thirsty and open to ridicule. But the XC90 is just the right size to swallow a ton of luggage and transport you safely though any type of terrain or weather.
Fill-ups Stop the Heart
One thing I was terrified of was filling the XC90 V8 with petrol. The first fill-up was over $140 – double what it costs in the USA. Luckily I was using regular and not premium. The second fill-up was slightly less. Let’s do the calculations…

There are 3.8 liters to the gallon so this fill-up was 55.99 litres or 14.7 gallons – it seemed like a lot more. Petrol was 120.9 pence per litre or £1.209 per litre. So, this particular fill-up was £67.70. Now, sometimes I pay that much in dollars, but in pounds it is a dramatically different situation. The dollar is $1.991 to each £1.00 British Pound. So this fill-up was $134.79. Now you understand why Europeans drive dramatically smaller cars than we do.
Pricing in Britain – Twice as Much as in USA!!!!!!!!
Not only do the British pay much more for petrol than Americans do for gasoline (mostly due to taxes), but they pay a whopping premium for the cars they drive. Take the XC90 for example. IIn the USA, the base price of the XC90 is $36,950. In Britain it is £32,845 (I’m not doing a feature by feature comparison – just base to base). So, that is $65,394. The Volvo XC90 Sport is $50,615 in the USA and the top of the line Executive model is £54,550 in Britain – $108,609. I don’t know about you, but thinking of paying more than $100,000 for a Volvo blows my mind. Now, probably I’m over estimating something here – like VAT – is it in or out of the British price? Don’t know. But even taking out a VAT amount, their prices still are a hugely stiff premium over USA prices.
Gillian Strikes Again
Every navigation system voice requires a name. This one is “Gillian”. One of the first things I do in Britain is to set the navigation system to exclude all motorways – limited access highways like interstates. I like to lump along on scenic byways rather than on a high speed highway. Over the years I have been experiencing ever improving direction capability and the Volvo navigation system was no exception. It never put the XC90 on a motorway. It kept the directions on A-Roads and B-Roads for the most part, but occasionally a road without number would pop up. Invariably, this road would be little more than a cowpath. It would have one lane roads through picturesque villages or include a toll-bridge (even though NO TOLL ROADS was programmed into the system). By day seven, I learned to ignore all directions that lacked a number like A36 or B3094. Those were safe and navigable, but without a number, all bets were off. This is a lesson to be heeded even here in the good ol’ USA.

Continue Reading