Offering another tasty morsel to further fuel the feeding frenzy in the sports utility vehicles space, Swedish car maker Volvo Cars unveiled its smallest premium SUV in the XC40 late last week. The compact five-seater SUV with obvious, strong Volvo design genes was unveiled in the Italian fashion capital city of Milan.

But for a company that has promised to go all-electric or at least hybrid by 2019, can this new SUV be a good showcase? Trust Volvo to come up with a very lateral thinking idea to reinforce its eco-credentials. Starting with the XC40, Volvo is attempting to completely reinvent the traditional car ownership model with what it is calling the “Care by Volvo” subscription service.

Volvo is comparing the new service with the ease and transparency of owning a phone. An official statement announcing the XC40 mentions that “Care by Volvo” will involve a monthly flat fee subscription, which then means down payments, price negotiations and local price differences will be a thing of the past. Depending on availability in the region, this service will also include access to a range of digital concierge services such as fueling, cleaning, service pick-up and e-commerce delivery to the car. The XC40 with this package is available for order online in select markets already. Car sharing comes as a standard feature.

The new XC40 completes the trio of SUVs available from Volvo for customers across the price and size range. “This is the first model on Volvo Cars’ new modular vehicle architecture (CMA), which will underpin all other upcoming cars in the 40 series including fully electrified vehicles,” said the statement.

The XC40 is said to offer many of the safety, connectivity and infotainment tech that are currently available in the 60 and 90 series models. Safety and driver assistance features in the XC40 include Volvo Cars’ Pilot Assistance System, City Safety, Run-off Road protection and mitigation, cross-traffic alert with brake support and 360-degree parking camera.

The XC40 is expected to be launched with two powertrains — the D4 diesel and the T5 petrol four-cylinder Drive-E engines. More options including a hybridised as well as a pure electric version are expected to be added later. This compact SUV will also be the first model to get the new Volvo three-cylinder engine currently under development. Production is expected to start in November this year at Volvo Cars’ plant in Ghent, Belgium.

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