2021 Volvo XC40 vs 2020 Mazda CX-5

According to a Harvard Business Review marketing study, there is such a thing as too much choice. And when the marketplace presents consumers with too much choice, there is a chance they won’t buy anything at all.

For the 2020 model year, there are more than 40 small or compact SUVs available, half of them sold by luxury brands. Small and scrappy Mazda offers three of them: the CX-3, the CX-30, and the CX-5. However, in a marketplace awash in Chevys, Fords, Hondas, and Toyotas, Mazda has trouble standing apart from the established crowd.

What’s the solution? Move upscale into “premium” territory.

Premium is where Buick, Fiat, GMC, Jeep, Mini, and Volkswagen play to varying levels of success. Combining the value inherent in a mainstream brand with the design, materials, and technology common to luxury brands, these premium vehicles attempt to provide more than mainstream for less than luxury.

At the same time, less is more. Because the 2020 Mazda CX-5 has but four similarly sized competitors in the premium class, that makes it easier for a consumer to choose, and more likely that a consumer will buy. The trick is convincing people that Mazda is a premium brand, and the automaker is taking a pragmatic approach to this emotionally charged solution.

Introduced for the 2019 model year, the Volvo XC40 enters 2021 with one major change—the addition of an all-electric powertrain option. The 2021 Volvo XC40 Recharge is the Scandinavian automaker’s first mass-market pure electric vehicle, in fact.

The Recharge will be sold alongside gasoline versions of the XC40, which carry over largely unchanged, and compete against small luxury crossovers like the Audi Q3, BMW X1, Mercedes-Benz GLA-Class, and Lexus UX. With its electric powertrain, the Recharge is a de facto Tesla Model Y competitor. It’s also priced similar to high-end versions of the Ford Mustang Mach-E, although the two electric crossovers have somewhat different philosophies.

In addition to that zero-emission powertrain, the Recharge gets an Android-based operating system, over-the-air (OTA) software update capability for all vehicle systems, and some updates to driver-assist tech. These changes don’t apply to gasoline 2021 XC40 models, but Volvo does plan to add the Android operating system to more vehicles in the future.

Since the Recharge is the main new thing for the 2021 XC40, that’s what we focused on for this review. While the gasoline XC40 is available in three trim levels—Momentum, R-Design, and Inscription—with standard all-wheel drive (AWD) in Canada, the Recharge is only offered in a single trim level.