Volvo C30 Electric: For Lease, At More Than $2,000 Per Month?

By Bengt Halvorson

473 views Mar 24, 2011

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Would you pay more than two grand a month to drive an electric Volvo?

Apparently, the automaker thinks that there are at least a few people or businesses that will. Volvo Cars Special Vehicles president Lennart Stegland said that Volvo plans to offer the C30 Electric for lease—at a price of 1,500 euros (more than $2,100) per month.

While pricing hasn't yet been finalized, the executive provided the figure at an event near Indianapolis, where EnerDel will assemble the C30 Electric's battery pack.

This past November, our John Voelcker spent 20 minutes behind the wheel of what was then called the C30 DRIVe Electric car, with Stegland in the passenger seat, and reported that this test car felt somewhat heavy. Though its aggressive regenerative braking and fair amoung of motor whine made that part of the driving experience feel close to that of the Tesla Roadster or MINI E. Volvo claims a 0-60-mph time of about ten seconds and a top speed of 81 mph

The C30 Electric will soon be tested on a limited basis in fleets, with about 400 involved in that; publicly available lease cars will follow early next year.

The automaker has already tried to allay some of the safety fears surrounding EVs by already crashing a C30 Electric.

Would you spend more than $75,000—or roughly three times the price of a Nissan Leaf after its tax credit—to drive a C30 Electric that you don't own, for three years? It seems a little perverse—although the executive told AutoblogGreen that the company would still be losing money at that.

And, keep in mind, the three-year lease total would be more than a Tesla Model S, the vehicle that's supposed to arrive beginning next year, will cost as little as $49,900 after the federal tax credit. Again, you'd own that...

Are you enough of a Volvo fan—or C30 lover—to pay a lot more for the experience of having an electric one?

[AutoblogGreen]