The newly designed S60 in the all-wheel drive version comes with dual electric motors that control the rear wheels with a 2 liter 4 cylinder, turbocharged and supercharged engine that produces 312 horsepower along with the additional 87 ponies form the electric motors, adds up to a very nice 400 horsepower.

The new hybrid system is a plug-in system, or it can also be charged through an onboard generation system. The batteries fully charged will provide all electric propulsion for 22 miles, and do a great job of getting the sedan around on their own as we found out with two days of completely electric driving around town.

After having such a great experience our first two days we decided it would be an even better test to take the S60 on a longer road trip and see how it would perform on the freeway, along with twisty high mountain roads.

We made some last minute plans, and headed off for the small town of Manilla, Utah located northwest of Flaming Gorge Reservoir. This came with plans of heading up through the mountains to the dam and then on down through Vernal, Utah and home.

This round trip would be just under 500 miles and include some great freeway time along with climbing to over 9000 feet in the Ashley National forest on the drive to Vernal. We had also found a great side byway through Sheep Creek Canyon that was recommend by the Explore Utah website.

Heading off on Friday afternoon, after a long work week the first thing we took advantage of was the massaging seats that came with the Luxury Seating Package that also included ventilation, power side bolstering and Nappa leather. At a cost of only $2,200 we would highly recommend this addition as we were constantly resetting the massagers and certainly arrived almost 4 hours later in Manilla well-adjusted and rested.

Being on I-80 through Wyoming allowed us to take the S60 to the speed limit of 80 mph, set the cruise and rely on the lane keep assist package and radar cruise control. The new sedan was perfect in every aspect on the long, wandering road.

At one point we had a Porsche Cayenne pull alongside of us using some strange finger gestures wanted us to race down the road. Knowing that the 400 horsepower would have been plenty we still felt it more important to enjoy the weekend in the mountains and not a Wyoming jail, as we let the Porsche speed off down the freeway.

When all the systems on the S60 combine the ride is completely awe-inspiring as it could become a rocket ship or just a luxury cruise liner as we found on the first leg of our trip. After arriving in Manilla we were averaging right around 34 mpg, not too bad for the large sedan, and we had used some of the fuel to charge the batteries.

We were able to plug the S60 in for the night at the motel to make sure we had a full charge to take us into the mountains the following morning. Little did we know that the next day would bring along with the chance to test the S60 to the extreme.

Saturday dawned a beautiful day in northeastern Utah as we headed for the backway of Sheep Creek Canyon–one of the reasons we had set out for this part of the state. The road starts about 8 miles south of Manilla and winds up along Sheep Creek and eventually gets very high into the Uintah Mountains, near Red Canyon.

The drive was spectacular for the scenery alone, winding through all types of geologic history. We even hiked to what was called Big Spring, that turned out to be the largest natural spring we had ever seen coming out of a rock face.

The S60, coming with all-wheel drive, handled it all with ease even when the pavement ended in couple of places.

It was well past noon when we got out of Sheep Creek and we thought we would head for the Flaming Gorge Damn and get some lunch. On our way the skies turned dark and it started to rain and as we approached the top it even started to hail very hard.

What a great opportunity to test out the winter capabilities of the new sedan in August as we headed through the tops of the mountains with the road covered with hail. The all-wheel drive system worked perfectly, keeping the sedan very well planted on the twisting mountain road. We would never have guessed the last week in August would have brought any kind of weather allowing us to experience slippery surfaces.

Of course the new S60 comes with all the great safety features that have become common place with Volvo. There was high and low speed collision mitigation that knows the difference between a vehicle, pedestrian and large animal in the road, luckily we did not encounter any large animals in the road.

There is also a great run off road mitigation and avoidance system that would help in the case of the driver just leaving the road, along with blind spot monitoring, and automatic high beam headlights that also came with light bending technology.

We love the huge 9-inch touch screen now included in all Volos, along with our test ride’s 12.3-inch LED high-definition driving display, and of course there was an added heads-up display.

After a week with the new hybrid set up in the Volvo we were believers and fans of the new system. The S60 handled great in all types of conditions and is loaded with luxury and safety–a fine road tripping sedan.

Base Price: $55,400

Price as Driven: $64,190