The Wall Street Journal - 19.10.2019 - 20.10.2019

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. **** Saturday/Sunday, October 19 - 20, 2019 |D11

IF YOU LOOK CLOSELY,thereisa

dent in my forehead from beating

it against Volvo steering wheels.

The Swedish car maker’s otherwise

excellent products have long been

plagued by underbaked firmware

and software. The most consumer-

facing issue has been the large,

portrait-oriented touch screen in

the cabin that runs Volvo’s Sensus

infotainment system and that is a

proper pain in the ass. It takes

seemingly forever to boot up after

you press the Start button—every

time you start—leaving you unable

to adjust the radio, temperature,

navi...Hellooo? The touch screen is

finicky, with tiny icons—runes, I

suppose. The navigation app is

sometimes unsure of its surround-

ings. The delay connecting to an

iPhone will have you googling “pa-

tience mantras.”

But we live in an age of won-

ders. It turns out much of what

ailed my last XC40 compact SUV

was curable—has been cured!—by

an extensive software update that

became available in April. Some of

these fixes improve cabin conve-

nience—like faster pairing to Ap-

ple CarPlay—and some go to the

heart of the machine’s drivability,

including the algorithms presiding

over engine and drivetrain. I don’t

usually review the same model

twice, but the post-update XC40 is

effectively a different vehicle and

a vastly improved consumer expe-

rience. Such is the nature of mod-

ern cars that coding counts more

than horsepower. Weird, huh?

The XC40 is the line’s compact

premium SUV, with either front or

all-wheel drive, five-star safety,

and lots of gear to go with its Nor-

dickühl. The vibe from the

driver’s seat is smart, restrained,

contemporary—if you had a den-

tist in Stockholm this is what his

chair would feel like. The base

price of the T5 AWD ($35,700) in-

cludes Volvo’s full suite of driver-

assistance features, such as colli-

sion avoidance braking, cross-

traffic alert with auto braking, and

lane-keeping assistance. All these,

I note, are helpful if you’ve taken

your eyes off the road to fiddle

with theritardandoSensus screen.

Our Inscription package T5

AWD ($47,395) was a tiny longboat

laden with surprise-and-delight

features, including driftwood in-

lays, metallic exterior paint, and

crystal gearshift knob from Orre-

fors. What’s Old Norse for “bling”?

Volvo’s coding problems date

back to the company’s recapitaliza-

tion and product reboot, circa 2011,

when Volvo laid out its emissions

strategy for the next decade. In a

bold bit of engineering design, the

company decided to restrict itself to

gas engines no larger than 2.0 liters

displacement—either supercharged,

turbocharged, super-turbocharged

or hybridized. These hardworking

machines were to be mated with

complex eight-speed automatic

transmissions and multi-clutch

AWD systems, to wring out the last

dram of efficiency.

All of that requires immense

amounts of code to move rapidly

throughout the car. The CAN bus

system—a car’s central nervous

system—has to smoothly integrate

data from dozens of ECUs (elec-

tronic control units) managing ev-

erything from lighting to cooling

to anti-lock brakes to transmission

algorithms and all the bells and

whistles too.

And sometimes, it seemed in my

previous test Volvos, the chipsets

or code just couldn’t keep up. The

sense of disconnection was most

acute in the plug-in hybrid models,

which require elaborate logic and

mechatronics to balance gas and

electric motive force, demand and

regenerative braking. But even in

the non-hybrid models, the low-

speed hesitancy and millisecond

latency can be huge. There was a

ghost in these machines—a bored,

passive-aggressive streetcar con-

ductor with numb hands.

Among the curiosities of the

Volvo update is the diversity of

systems that are tweaked. Is that

standard practice, I wonder? In

the cabin, for example, the rear

seat belt warning chime will now

stop if the vehicle is motionless

and then start again once it

moves. Here’s a fun one: “altered

optimization” of the noise-cancel-

ling system to mask powertrain ra-

diations. They changed the color

of the aural wallpaper.

The Apple CarPlay module was

mission-critical, apparently. Now

the iPhone startup is quicker—sec-

onds count in this environment—

and the Volvo will now display texts

and notifications. Better mapping

information in China, too, appar-

ently. Obiter dicta, I would like to

see data on the number of Volvo

windshields that needed replacing

due to owners throwing their de-

vices in frustration.

The Sensus touch screen system

itself got a thorough recalibration,

including what Volvo calls “perfor-

mance and stability improvements.”

That means, roughly, quicker re-

sponse time with less fussy touch

screening. Both much appreciated.

The navigation’s points-of-interests

functions were updated, as well.

Navigation through voice command

remains hopeless.

The most striking, night-and-day

difference is in the way the com-

pact SUV actually drives. Like other

Volvos, the XC40 has multiple driv-

ing modes—Eco, Normal, Sport—

with different throttle and trans-

mission “maps,” or control

algorithms, that favor efficiency or

performance. But what really mat-

ters is the default mode, the one

most consumers will use, all the

time. In the previous car, the throt-

tle response in Normal was te-

diously nonlinear. You stepped on

the gas and then after what seems a

considerable sussing of data the ap-

proved acceleration came on.

Not so with the revised software.

Our T5 Inscription answered the

whip when cracked and was much

less hesitant at low speeds. The

four-banger and eight-speeder seem

more on the same page. Everything

sounds happier, though that might

be the noise-cancelling system.

The only thing that might be

more marvelous about Volvo’s

software update is if owners could

receive it over the air—like Tesla

owners can—so they don’t have to

go to dealerships. But I guess one

reboot at a time.

I don’t usually review the

same model twice, but

this is effectively a

different vehicle, a vastly

improved experience.

VOLVO

RUMBLE SEAT/ DAN NEIL

Volvo’s Updated XC40 T5:

Worthy of a Second Look

Base Price$35,700

Price as Tested$47,335

PowertrainTurbocharged direct in-

jection 2.0-liter overhead cam four

cylinder; eight-speed automatic trans-

mission; permanent all-wheel drive

Power/Torque248 hp at 5,500

rpm/258 pound-feet at 1,800 rpm

Length/Width/Height/Wheelbase

174.2/73.7/65.3/106.4 inches

Curb Weight3,756 pounds

0-60 mph6.1 seconds

EPA Fuel Economy23/31/26 mpg,

city/highway/combined

Cargo Capacity20.7/47.2 cubic feet

(seat back up/folded)

2020 VOLVO XC40 T5 AWD

MY TECH ESSENTIALS

I had an old beat-up

toolbox on wheels

that I’d roll onto the

subway when I first

movedtoNewYork.

I actually think it’s a

boxusedtotrans-

port musical instru-

ments. I survived in

Manhattan by

working for wealthy

people on the Up-

per East Side—I’d

install cabinets in

their kitchens or

put in a dry bar in

their apartments or

whatever they

needed. Now that

box is in the pool

shed, but I still keep

some tools in it.

Chris Cooper

The Oscar-winning actor, and narrator of the recent

documentary ‘Intelligent Lives,’ on his beloved

wheeled toolbox, his memorization tricks and the

first time he played videogames with his son

I WANT A NEW DRIVEFirmware

updates have greatly improved the

XC40’s connectivity. But the biggest

difference is seen in how it steers.

GEAR & GADGETS

Our son, Jesse, was

nonverbal and quadri-

plegic and was a little

pioneer with a technol-

ogy calledeye gaze

[similar tech shown].

He would have sensors attached to muscles around one

eye, and then with that eye he could move a cursor on a

screen. With it, we played an early videogame where you

shoot at rockets in space. Jesse beat me the first time we

played—the first time we really were able to play a game

together. It was another sign that he was fully there.

The Wall Street Journal is not compensated by retailers listed in its articles as outlets for products. Listed retailers frequently are not the sole retail outlets.

I drive a2013 Toyota

RAV4. I bought if from an

elderly gentleman who

turns in his cars after

13,000 miles. It’s just a

little workhorse. It’s the

car we take to the dump.

We have a tidal river in our backyard in Massachusetts

that empties into Plymouth Bay. The first few times my

wife, Marianne Leone, and I took our kayaks out, it was

sobizarretobedownontheleveloftheegretsandsee

our house from that perspective. It’s just a whole differ-

ent experience kayaking in your backyard.

I have a handful of different colored

pens that I use when I’m memorizing my

lines. I have a yellow highlighter as well as

blue, black, red, orange and greenSharpies,and

they’re all for very specific purposes. For example,

I highlight all my lines in the script in yellow. If I still

can’t remember a specific word, I’ll box that in green. It

puts out the radar that I need to keep working on that word. If

I say a line in unison with another character, I’ll hit that with a

red Sharpie.

CHRIS COOPER (TOOL BOX); LC TECHNOLOGIES, INC. (EYE GAZE); F. MARTIN RAMIN/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (SHARPIE); DIY NETWORK (CURTIS)

We love HBO’s “Big Little Lies.” No

one can realize how good Meryl

Streep [his “Adaptation” co-star]

is unless you’re on set seeing how

much variety she brings to each

take. I also love home improve-

ment shows, especially“Rehab

Addict” with Nicole Curtis.

—Editedfromaninterview

by Chris Kornelis