Latest news with #Jönköping
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Erik Brännström Signs Multi-Year Deal In Switzerland
Swedish defenseman Erik Brännström, 25, has signed a three-year contract with Lausanne HC, the National League club announced on Monday. 'We are very pleased to welcome Erik Brännström, a player we have been following for some time,' said Lausanne sports director John Fust. 'His anticipation, mobility, and ability to contribute offensively make him a modern and complete defender. Our analysis confirms that his experience and versatility will be major assets for our squad.' Brännström, who had played in North America from 2018 until now, had been rumored to be heading to Switzerland for some time. Originally from Eksjö, Sweden, Brännström played junior hockey and turned pro with HV71 in nearby Jönköping. Brännström was a first-round pick, 17th overall, by the Vegas Golden Knights in 2017 and was moved to the Ottawa Senators in a 2019 multi-player deal that saw Vegas acquire Mark Stone. From 2019 to 2024, Brännström's career was fairly stable – mostly playing in the NHL for Ottawa with occasional assignments to the Belleville Senators, the team's nearby AHL farm team. However, this past season was quite chaotic for the diminutive, puck-moving defenseman. He signed as a free-agent with the Colorado Avalanche in the summer but was traded to the Vancouver Canucks before the season began. After playing 28 games in Vancouver, he was dealt to the New York Rangers as part of the J.T. Miller trade in late January and then traded again to the Buffalo Sabres just prior to the trade deadline. He did not play an NHL game for either of the latter two teams. Overall, Brännström has 77 points and 162 penalty minutes in 294 NHL regular-season games. Brännström joins a Lausanne team that has been one of Switzerland's best the past few years and wants to win a title this year under reigning coach of the year Geoff Ward. Last season the team finished first in the regular season and has lost in the finals each of the past two seasons to the ZSC Lions. In addition to Brännström, Lausanne has under contract for 2025-26 goaltenders Connor Hughes and Antoine Keller, as well as American Austin Czarnik, German Dominik Kahun, and Finns Janne Kuokkanen, and Antti Suomela, Lauri Pajuniemi and Sami Niku. Photo © Robert Edwards-Imagn Images: Erik Brännström playing for the Vancouver Canucks in 2024-25. Connor Hughes Returns To Switzerland, Signs Long-Term Deal Canadian-Swiss goaltender Connor Hughes, 28, has signed a five-year contract with Lausanne HC, the National League club announced on Tuesday.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Erik Brännström Signs Multi-Year Deal In Switzerland
Swedish defenseman Erik Brännström, 25, has signed a three-year contract with Lausanne HC, the National League club announced on Monday. 'We are very pleased to welcome Erik Brännström, a player we have been following for some time,' said Lausanne sports director John Fust. 'His anticipation, mobility, and ability to contribute offensively make him a modern and complete defender. Our analysis confirms that his experience and versatility will be major assets for our squad.' Advertisement Brännström, who had played in North America from 2018 until now, had been rumored to be heading to Switzerland for some time. Originally from Eksjö, Sweden, Brännström played junior hockey and turned pro with HV71 in nearby Jönköping. Brännström was a first-round pick, 17th overall, by the Vegas Golden Knights in 2017 and was moved to the Ottawa Senators in a 2019 multi-player deal that saw Vegas acquire Mark Stone. From 2019 to 2024, Brännström's career was fairly stable – mostly playing in the NHL for Ottawa with occasional assignments to the Belleville Senators, the team's nearby AHL farm team. Advertisement However, this past season was quite chaotic for the diminutive, puck-moving defenseman. He signed as a free-agent with the Colorado Avalanche in the summer but was traded to the Vancouver Canucks before the season began. After playing 28 games in Vancouver, he was dealt to the New York Rangers as part of the J.T. Miller trade in late January and then traded again to the Buffalo Sabres just prior to the trade deadline. He did not play an NHL game for either of the latter two teams. Overall, Brännström has 77 points and 162 penalty minutes in 294 NHL regular-season games. Brännström joins a Lausanne team that has been one of Switzerland's best the past few years and wants to win a title this year under reigning coach of the year Geoff Ward. Last season the team finished first in the regular season and has lost in the finals each of the past two seasons to the ZSC Lions. In addition to Brännström, Lausanne has under contract for 2025-26 goaltenders Connor Hughes and Antoine Keller, as well as American Austin Czarnik, German Dominik Kahun, and Finns Janne Kuokkanen, and Antti Suomela, Lauri Pajuniemi and Sami Niku. Advertisement Photo © Robert Edwards-Imagn Images: Erik Brännström playing for the Vancouver Canucks in 2024-25. Connor Hughes Returns To Switzerland, Signs Long-Term Deal Connor Hughes Returns To Switzerland, Signs Long-Term Deal Canadian-Swiss goaltender Connor Hughes, 28, has signed a five-year contract with Lausanne HC, the National League club announced on Tuesday.
Car and Driver
7 days ago
- Automotive
- Car and Driver
Tested: 2025 Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Bends Reality
About two years ago, Volvo announced the EX30, a compact electric crossover that headlined with an audacious base price around $35,000. A single-motor version would anchor the low end of the lineup and entice younger buyers into the Volvo fold, while a performance-oriented dual-motor version would pad profit margins with a much higher sticker price. That was the plan back in 2023, but as you may have heard, there's been a bit of turmoil in the car market since then—particularly for imports, EVs, and cars at the lower end of the price spectrum. The EX30, belonging to all three of those cohorts, is in a particularly fraught position, so Volvo did the logical thing and trimmed the lineup. Go ahead and take a wild guess which EX30 variant is on sale now. If you think it's the bare-bones affordable one, we have a bridge in Jönköping to sell you. HIGHS: Bonkers acceleration, admirable efficiency, tidy dimensions. The EX30 Twin Motor Performance starts at $46,195 for the Plus trim, while our Ultra-trim test car goes for $47,895. There's not much difference in pricing between the two because there's barely any difference in the trims, with the Ultra including extra driver-assist features—automatic rear braking, Volvo's Pilot Assist lane-keeping and adaptive cruise, and a 360-degree camera system. The challenge for the uplevel EX30 is that it's based on a car that was aimed at a much lower price point, and evidence of that fiscal discipline abounds. View Exterior Photos Marc Urbano | Car and Driver Connoisseurs of the modern Volvo interior experience will find no crystal shifters or gray ash veneer here. Also: no dedicated rear window switches up front, no key fob, no gauges in front of the driver, and no knobs or buttons whatsoever besides the stalks on either side of the steering wheel and the multipurpose buttons on the wheel itself. The tinted glass roof doesn't open, nor does it have an interior shade. There's no start/stop button. Your primary interface with the car is a touchscreen that, at 12.3 inches, is smaller than some current iPads. View Interior Photos Marc Urbano | Car and Driver All of this is framed as stark Scandinavian minimalism, and Volvo at least has the cred to pitch it that way. But in practice you might wish for a few more non-virtual buttons and physical controls. Sometimes, you put the EX30 in Park and step out and the car remains awake, your music blaring—there's no button to push on the featureless black rectangle known as the key tag. You can use your phone as a key (a.k.a. digital key plus) as long as you have an iPhone 11 or newer, and there's an EX30 app that can spoof some of the functions of a physical fob, like unlocking the doors. But mostly you just trust the car to power up when you climb in and put itself to bed when you leave, even if that occasionally means that passersby catch the final refrains of "Dr. Feelgood" as you open the door. At least the buttons on the right side of the steering wheel can control the stereo volume—if they're not being deployed to adjust the exterior mirrors. Yes, Volvo clearly spent plenty of time with a Tesla or two. LOWS: Bare-bones interior aesthetic, indifferent handling, limited range. If the EX30's spartan interior recalls a race car more than it does a traditional Volvo, so does its performance. Volvo predicted that the dual-motor EX30 would become its quickest car yet, and it was right. The EX30 is small—nearly seven inches shorter than a Jeep Compass—and narrow enough that you have to take the drivers out of a golf bag to fit clubs in the cargo area. It's also light for an EV, with our test car weighing a relatively feathery 4189 pounds. But it packs 422 horsepower, and that's a formula for righteous acceleration. Our example torched 60 mph in 3.3 seconds, which is awfully close to the starting-line jolt you'd get in a PDK-equipped Porsche 911. Reaching triple-digit speeds requires just 8.6 seconds. If the EX30's quarter-mile sprint—11.8 seconds at 112 mph—doesn't seem quite as keen as its off-the-line energy, that's partly because the wee Volvo is approaching its 114-mph speed limiter by the end of the quarter. We can attest that it's great fun to smoke V-8 Mustangs at stoplights with a small Volvo, particularly when it's painted a shade of yellow that's "inspired by the lichen on Swedish granite." View Interior Photos Marc Urbano | Car and Driver Fortunately, the EX30's brakes are up to the task of erasing all this speed, hauling it down to a stop from 70 mph in 166 feet and from 100 mph in 331 feet. Of course, you needn't touch the brake pedal much at all in daily driving if you engage one-pedal drive from the touchscreen. We preferred the more natural coasting setting, preferably when paired with the Performance AWD mode. The EX30's 253-mile EPA-rated range—stout for a car with a modest 64-kWh battery—is goosed by the Volvo's eco-minded standard drive mode, in which the front motor is dormant until called upon. Locking the wee SUV in AWD helps quell any wheelspin, but it might also cost you some range. Which is important given our car went only 160 miles on our 75-mph range test. Volvo says the EX30 can charge from 10 to 80 percent in less than 27 minutes on a DC fast-charger, and an 11.0-kW onboard AC charger will make for reasonably timely fill-ups at home. In our testing, however, its battery took 39 minutes to go from 10 to 90 percent on a DC hookup, with an average draw of only 83 kilowatts. Its peak rate never approached its 153-kW max. The EX30's handling is best described as benign, with limits more in line with your small-crossover expectations—0.85 g on the skidpad, with the Michelin Primacy All Season tires gently proclaiming their preference for minimal noise and low rolling resistance over outright stick. Indeed, 69 decibels inside at 70 mph makes for a fairly quiet environment. There are three choices for steering effort, with the firmest one feeling like it would be our default setting. Speaking of default settings, the EX30's invasive lane-keeping tech defaults to active. On the highway you don't notice it as much, but it's constantly tugging at the wheel on two-lane roads. Perhaps Volvo's over-the-air-update department could see fit to rectify that. View Interior Photos Marc Urbano | Car and Driver As for whether Volvo will ever get around to building the single-motor EX30 and attempting to realize its original thrifty-EV vision, that's a hard maybe. They're looking into it, but there's no timeline. What is imminent is the EX30 Cross Country, an all-terrain offshoot that will send the price further upward. In the meantime, the EX30 Twin Motor Performance offers a glimpse of what might've been and what might still be. But if this is the only EX30 we ever get, at least we get the quickest Volvo ever built. View Exterior Photos Marc Urbano | Car and Driver VERDICT: Of course the quickest production Volvo ever built is a sleeper. Specifications Specifications 2025 Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra Vehicle Type: front- and rear-motor, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door wagon PRICE Base/As Tested: $47,895/$48,395 Options: Climate package (heated steering wheel and front seats), $500 POWERTRAIN Front Motor: permanent-magnet synchronous AC, 154 hp, 148 lb-ft Rear Motor: permanent-magnet synchronous AC, 268 hp, 253 lb-ft Combined Power: 422 hp Combined Torque: 400 lb-ft Battery Pack: liquid-cooled lithium-ion, 64 kWh Onboard Charger: 11.0 kW Peak DC Fast-Charge Rate: 153 kW Transmissions, F/R: direct-drive CHASSIS Suspension, F/R: struts/multilink Brakes, F/R: 12.7-in vented disc/12.6-in vented disc Tires: Michelin Primacy All Season 245/45R-19 M+S POL DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 104.3 in Length: 166.7 in Width: 72.3 in Height: 61.2 in Passenger Volume, F/R: 56/37 ft3 Cargo Volume, Behind F/R: 32/14 ft3 Curb Weight: 4189 lb C/D TEST RESULTS 60 mph: 3.3 sec 100 mph: 8.6 sec 1/4-Mile: 11.8sec @ 112 mph Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec. Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 3.5 sec Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 1.5 sec Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 2.0 sec Top Speed (gov ltd): 114 mph Braking, 70–0 mph: 166 ft Braking, 100–0 mph: 331 ft Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.85 g C/D FUEL ECONOMY AND CHARGING Observed: 83 MPGe 75-mph Highway Range: 160 mi Average DC Fast-Charge Rate, 10–90%: 83 kW DC Fast-Charge Time, 10–90%: 39 min EPA FUEL ECONOMY Combined/City/Highway: 109/116/100 MPGe Range: 253 mi C/D TESTING EXPLAINED Reviewed by Ezra Dyer Senior Editor Ezra Dyer is a Car and Driver senior editor and columnist. He's now based in North Carolina but still remembers how to turn right. He owns a 2009 GEM e4 and once drove 206 mph. Those facts are mutually exclusive.
