It’s difficult to buy a properly small new car in North America, and a small electric car is even trickier to find. Short of the Fiat 500e and the electric Mini, few truly subcompact options exist, let alone ones that blend a city-friendly footprint with the range you want for road trips. So how about the Volvo EX30? We’ve been waiting quite a while for this little crossover to come ashore, likely due in part to a trade war with China, but it’s finally here.
On paper, it does everything right. It’s only five inches longer than a Honda Fit, has the range of a base Ford Mustang Mach-E, and acceleration figures that are genuinely surprising. Best of all, this is the EX30 that people will actually buy once it makes its way to the U.S., the cheaper single-motor model that Volvo claimed would start at just over $36,000 including freight. It took the internet by storm, but what’s it like to live with for a full week? Let’s find out.
[Full disclosure: Volvo Canada let me borrow this EX30 for a week so long as I kept the shiny side up, returned it with at least 70 percent charge, and reviewed it.]
The Basics
Battery Pack: 65 kWh net capacity lithium-ion battery pack.
Drive: Single-motor rear-wheel-drive.
Output: 268 horsepower and 253 lb.-ft. of torque.
EPA Range: 260 miles.
Peak DC Fast Charging: 153 kW.
Base Price: $56,470 Canadian including freight.
Price As-Tested: $61,870 Canadian including freight.
Why Does The Volvo EX30 Exist?
Back in 2023, Volvo had a brilliant plan: Leverage the fact that it’s owned by Geely to send a premium subcompact electric crossover to North America for under $37,000 by going minimalist but high-style. It was an interesting plan, but it almost immediately got absolutely torpedoed by substantial tariffs on Chinese EVs. Since then, Volvo’s pivoted to production in Belgium, has finally started sending dual-motor models to America, and this single-motor model should be coming soon.
How Does It Look?
Walking up to the Volvo EX30, you can’t help but be struck by how it’s properly tiny, truly deserving of its subcompact status. It’s only a tenth of an inch longer than a Jeep Renegade and roughly the same size as the previous generation Hyundai Kona Electric. Want a less niche comparison? This thing’s 5.3 inches shorter than a Toyota Corolla hatchback.
However, despite the diminutive length of the EX30, nothing about its styling seems dinky. From the signature T-shaped headlights to the mature, conservative surfacing, it’s as handsome as a navy blazer, and it most certainly doesn’t look cheap. There’s real detail to the taillights, heft to the door handles, and sharpness to the creases, all of which suggest that this is a real luxury car.
What About The Interior?
Looking beyond the exterior, you start to get a sense that the EX30 is pared-back to the extreme. It starts with the Ken Doll of keys, a completely smooth shiny black Tic Tac box with no buttons on it whatsoever. Use its proximity ping to unlock the door, slide behind the wheel, and you’re met with some chairs and a single screen and that’s it.
Granted, there is a funkiness to some of the materials. My test car’s navy blue upholstery is a welcome break from a sea of black, and the use of translucent trim on the air vents, pops of confetti on the upper interior trims, and a unique chipboard finish on the lower sections of the door cards feels quite Frutiger Aero. In contrast, there’s something mid-century modern about the gorgeous metallic interior door handles, which look and feel fit for something twice the EX30’s price. I also like how the glovebox is in the middle of the dashboard, so it won’t mash your passenger’s knees.
As for comfort, you get a lovely thin-rimmed steering wheel wrapped in exceptionally soft material, the driving position’s quite alright, and the front seats are Volvo-lite, meaning they’re perfect for the EX30’s mission. Unfortunately, the rear seat squab sits so close to the floor that riding in the back is reminiscent of popping a squat. Actually, it’s about as spartan back there as an outdoor latrine since there are no cup holders or armrest, a move that seems a bit egregious for the price tag.
How Does It Drive?
Despite the single-motor EX30 not being the quick one, don’t be caught sleeping on it. After all, it makes more power than a base Mustang Mach-E and weighs 3,859 pounds, which means even the entry model moves out. Figure zero-to-60 mph in less than six seconds, and seamless electric torque means every on-ramp’s an excuse to summon up a squirt of power. Equally important is the brake pedal calibration, which just feels right. There’s a mastery to the blending of regenerative and friction braking, making the transition virtually imperceptible while still offering a firm, confident pedal.
Speaking of firm stuff, the ride of the EX30 around town fits with its compact, nimble footprint, in that you definitely notice the larger bumps but they’re dispatched with quickly. The upside is five-micron filtering of tar snakes and other minor road imperfections, and a general sense of “hold on bro, I’ve got this.” Granted, the steering is hilariously overboosted around town even in its firmest setting, to the point where you can twirl the wheel with two fingertips and minimal effort, so you won’t find much confidence there. It makes drive-thrus and parking lots hilariously easy, especially combined with the Oreo-sized turning circle, but you do wish for a bit more feedback.
Well if you want better steering, why not drive a bit faster? The ride that’s a bit firm around town settles down brilliantly on the freeway, and the steering weights up enough for utter confidence at left lane speeds. There still isn’t much feedback, but it’s amazing how something shorter than a Corolla hatchback locks in so nicely on faster roads.
Does It Have The Electronic Crap I Want?
Outside of Apple Carplay, Android Auto, a wireless phone charger, and a robust driver assistance suite, the Volvo EX30 is more about electronic crap you don’t want rather than stuff you do. The glovebox release and, more concerningly, the hazard warning light switch are in the touchscreen. In fact, every bloody thing from the speedometer to the mirror controls are in the touchscreen, so if you need to adjust everything, the driver monitoring system is going to holler at you as if your most neurotic parent was riding shotgun. If user interface decisions mean I can’t turn off my heated seat and keep my eyes on the road, whose fucking fault is that?
But wait, there’s more. Volvo took a good look at the Volkswagen ID.4 and decided to swipe its window controls, but then reduced them even further by putting two window switches and a capacitive touch pad for rear window control on the center console. The power seat controls are also non-traditional, with a cube to move things about and a button to cycle through what you want to move. You also don’t get a volume knob or a pause button, there’s no button to turn the car off, and it only goes to sleep when you lock it. This means you always get exit music, which is fine if you’re listening to “Blue Monday” but atrocious if you’re listening to “The Whisper Song.”
Speaking of tunes, my optioned-up tester came with a Harman/Kardon sound system that sounds like absolute garbage until you turn off Harman’s abominable Quantum Logic Surround processing and realize that sound quality’s actually remarkably crisp, but rear fill is lacking. If you’re into sound quality rather than staging, the EX30’s optional Harman/Kardon system is one of the best options in this price bracket, you just have to tell the digital signal processing that you know better than it does.
Three Things To Know About The Volvo EX30 Single Motor
- Its door bins and console tray are sized for MacBooks and a canvas bag, respectively.
- The whole car is weirdly annoying to use.
- The electronics are gonna give you exit music.
Does It Fulfil Its Purpose?
This is a tricky one. The Volvo EX30 may or may not fulfil its purpose, mostly because we’re still waiting on U.S. pricing for the single-motor model. We still don’t know where final U.S. pricing will land. Up in Canada, the EX30 single-motor stickers for $56,470 Canadian, and this loaded-up single-motor trim stickers for $61,870 Canadian. At current conversion rates, that works out to $39,512 for the base model, or about three grand more than the initial touted price. If Volvo can hold the line, the base EX30 may be more competitive, but now that a Mustang Mach-E starts right in that price bracket? It’s tough.
At the same time, the EX30 single-motor’s minimalism feels like a conspiracy by big small to sell more less. It’s a joyful EV to drive most of the time, it looks tremendous, and it’s remarkably comfortable for front seat occupants, but its electronics are infuriating to use. Even once you learn where everything is, the digital controls are still in the way, resulting in a complicated car that’s a little bit more frustrating than joyful, even for someone who gets used to tech quickly. Should a new car be annoying? I don’t think it should.
What’s The Punctum Of The Volvo EX30 Single Motor?
Volvo’s funky entry-level electric crossover is, unfortunately, a little bit too minimalist for its own good.
Top graphic credit: Thomas Hundal
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
The Volvo EX30 Cross Country Seems Mostly For Posing And That’s Totally Okay
-
Looks Like The Volvo EX30 Is Finally Coming To America This Year After Months Of Delays
-
I Drove The New Volvo EX30 On Ice In Sweden And Now I Want To Give Volvo $35,000
-
Here’s How Small The Refreshingly Affordable Electric Volvo EX30 Actually Is
-
Why The $35,000 2024 Volvo EX30 Is Such A Big Deal For A Small Car
Please send tips about cool car things to tips@theautopian.com. You could even win a prize!
That thing is UGLY!
I got to check one out a couple weeks ago! It was at the top of my list of potential Tesla replacements, and was crossed off once I was done.
I don’t mind the tech. But I’ll only ever sync my phone via bluetooth and use that.
I didn’t mind the size… until I got in. Seat all the way back, I had no room in the driver’s seat. For something that’s so spartan on the interior, they really didn’t do much to maximize the use of space in the interior. There was no way for me to sit in the car without a knee resting against that giant screen. I’d feel really bad for anyone behind me too – there would be no room for humans with legs if I had the seat in an ok driving position. Yeah, I’m tall. But I’ve also found cars like the Fit and Mini to have lots of room for taller drivers. Enough that I’ve moved the seat up in both.
P.S. -> The absence of a power button is the right way to do an EV. Get in, shift to drive, and go. Done driving? Just get out. It’s ok for some elements of an EV to move away from things that are only needed because of the gas engine.
I’ve seen writers and other content creators reference “Frutiger Aero” a few times lately, but your fine review is the first time I actually bothered to look it up. I always love your work Thomas, so if you bothered to use the term, googling it seemed like the least I could do. 😉
I really wanted to like the EX30… and I still sort of do. The similar Smart #1 (they call it “hashtag one” which is annoying as fuck to a guy who doesn’t carry a cellphone, let alone a smartphone, and who’s avoided social media his whole life) which is built on the same Geely platform, is also sort of appealing.
BUT (and it’s one so big it’d make SirMixalot happy) the Volvo EX30 base model is going to MSRP for a ten dollar bill less than $45K according to Volvo’s US website (no idea if we’re going to get the Smart #1 at all). At $35K, I could see some folks charmed by the colored interiors and Volvo design cues, and maybe be willing to put up with the annoying minimalism and millions of lines of convoluted and probably nosy Chinese software code. But at $45K? No way, not even for a car with interiors supposedly available in yellow, or green, or blue …at least not for me.
When EX30s are a few years old, and off-lease ones are trading hands for half their original price, then it’ll have a better chance of replacing my ’04 XC90. 😉
That seems like a lot of money for something cost cut to shit.
We saw an EX30 with manufacturer plates sitting in a parking lot last September, and for the first time, my husband said he could see replacing his beloved but aging i3 with something different. The size is right, the price isn’t bad, the range would be a huge upgrade…but the interior/tech is an absolute, 100% dealbreaker.
It’s nuts. If you ask any normie what Volvo is all about, they could probably immediately name two things: wagons, and safety. And that identity goes DEEP. Between that interview the other day and decisions like the UI/UX in this car (to say nothing of Polestars that don’t even have friggin’ windows), the company is obviously bent on destroying a level of awareness and value that any sane brand would kill for.
A friend wanted to cross-shop this and the Genesis GV60, but the Volvo didn’t get to America in time for her (trying to avoid tariffs and all). She is very happy with her choice, and reviews like this reinforce her choice. I can not wait for automakers to back away from the “touchscreen all the things” design philosophy…I dislike it so very much.
$60k for a Chinese-built thing the size of a Golf with no buttons and kind of a cheap interior is a non-starter. There’s no way it’s worth the premium over a Niro or ID.3.
Again, the day that other car companies stop trying to be Tesla is going to be a wonderful day for how we interact with our automobiles. This shit is stupid, needlessly complex, and most of all dangerous. It’s also something that manufacturers have been trying to get away with for years and pretty much every single time they’ve had to go back to putting buttons, knobs, and switches in their cars.
VW decided to do this a few years ago and it might legitimately kill the company. Honda tried it before that and had to do an about face. Literally no one wants this bullshit. Stop trying to cram it down consumers’ throats. Between this nonsense, selling their soul to China, and claiming they’re going to ditch wagons Volvo is truly dead to me.
My GOD that sounds annoying to live with. Shame, I like the look of it a lot
Oh man the attention nags combined with the fact you have to divide your attention to do anything is a dealbreaker and Thomas is right to be angry about it.
And yeah wow that interior is sparse. Reminds me of Hardigree suggesting the other day that Tesla could do a decontented Model 3 as if there’s anything to remove in the interior!
Volvos were always a few years out of date when launched, the “touchscreen ALL THE THINGS!” mindset is so 2021.
When will you need a hazard button in an EV? Perhaps when the battery dies. What will also be dead when the battery dies? The touchscreen.
I cannot believe that FMVSS allows for a non physical hazard button.
I like it, I don’t give a shit about the tech.
It looks cool (check)
It’s fun to drive (check)
If I had one, I’d get some lowering springs and make it look more like a hot hatch.
Ugh. ENOUGH with “minimalist” interiors that sacrifice the functionality of physical controls for rooting around in touchscreen menus. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, ever complained about the horror of having to look at a glove box latch. I have never once wished my radio volume was harder to change and I’m pretty sure that “gauges block my view of the road” isn’t one of the top complaints J.D. Power gets on their surveys. This is blatant cost-cutting dressed up as high fashion. It’s a shame because the overall aesthetic of the interior is really nice but I can’t even imagine trying to live with the stupid user interface on a daily basis.
I am not a hater of a centrally located speedometer (seemed to work well in my old Toyota Echo). The issue comes from EVERYTHING being on the screen. I keep feeling like people who grew up using iPads and had a budget of 15 dollars developed the inside of this thing.
I wanted to love this. The styling, Volvo’s comfort and safety records, funky materials. The screen controlling EVERYTHING though? No thanks!
Much as I defend the general existence and usefulness of screens, yeah, this is much too far. And not having a separate gauge cluster on the dash (even if centered, like my Prius, which I honestly prefer at this point) is also unfortunate.
Looks nice, but that’s not gonna save it.
No thank you, not even if it was a gift.
Nice to see Volvo moving in the right direction in price. It seems like the aftermarket always has to come in to make bev function as most people want them too. Geelys software seems a lot better then a lot of the OEMs but still seems needs a bit of work for the north American market. I assume the Chinese make some kind of aftermarket screens for these.
I feel like the hazards being only in the touchscreen is… well… a hazard.
I loved the idea of this thing, as well as the looks, when I first saw it. Unfortunately, I then saw the interior and lack of any controls, and that was deal over.
I don’t see how that’s legal. Feels really sketchy somehow.
It really does.
Nothing displayed in front of the driver is a safety fail/do not buy from me.
Making everything controlled by a touchscreen with no buttons is down right alarming. What if the display fails? The screen should be the redunancy for buttons or dial, not vice-versa.
I think touchscreen in vehicles are a safety risk and should be disallowed. It’s a profit margin move for the companies, not an ergonomic or safety decision.
Also, I don’t care about Carplay or Android Auto. Is it Bluetooth only for music? I don’t see any USB ports to play music off of a USB stick or to charge devices? Is it wireless charge only? That’s fine for a lot (but not all) phones, but there are tablets, hand held gaming systems, etc that don’t charge wirelessly. That seems like either an oversight, or just a bad decision.
Honestly, I’d rather have an HUD than look a tablet to get info, and I HATE HUD’s and disable them or cover them in every rental I get that has them on by default. So..that’s how bad I think this ‘tablet only’ idea is.
Had a test drive in one last year when they were finally available in dealers here (Norway), and I’m not quite as dissapointed with the tech as you are, but there are certainly some thing that were annoying going in with almost no guidance.
Firstly, steering wheel controls feel like real buttons, but they aren’t so you need to leard where to push to get desired results.
And the central screen is annoying as in any Tesla.
Adn ‘thirldy’ apparently it’s possible to turn off the indicator sound, and I didn’t know how to turn it back on, so I had to look at the centrer screen to make sure they were on every time I used them.
As for the rest of the car, the rear seats are too close to the floor, just like most EV’s I’ve tried except the Polestar 2 and its platform sisters who sacrifices some battery capacity for extra leg room. And the front seats , while they do have enough controls once you learn to use them, and are mostly pretty good (like most Volvos), they’re not ment for people whos shoulders are as wide and as far from the seat bottom as mine.
I think it drives really well, although it feels like a typical small car, even if the interior looks and feels pretty upscale there’s enough road and wind noise and like you mentioned the steering is as light as in a Civic, and the steering wheel is a bit too thin for my taste.
I tested a fully loaded twin motor, and even if I’m used to a 476hp Polestar it still felt more than fast enough. It’s probably as close as we can get to a true electric hot hatch on the market right now, and I wish they had just designed and marketed it as one.
If I had kept my old Civic a year or two longer instead of buying a Polestar 2 I would have probably bought an EX30 and upgraded/modified or gotten used to it’s ‘quirks and features’.
The price difference up to a dual Motor PS2 is large enough to excuse most of the EX30s shortcomings, but it’s hard to ‘downgrade’ , especially as the 2 has depreciated quite a bit since I ordered it almost 3 years ago.
Most people (at least before the US lost the election on November) probably won’t think that getting a car that looks 137% better is worth it when deciding between a model 3 and the flat out gorgeous little Volvo, so if you can live without indicators, have no other charging network available, can handle electric door openers, don’t need a rear hatch, and it’s always raining just at the level Tesla automation thinks is normal, a model 3 is definitely a better deal on paper.
My C40 has a few more buttons (and a glove box that opens with a manual latch), and it has voice control for things like seat heat. I assume you could do some of these functions with the voice control on an EX30 as well?
yes, it has the a new version of AAOS as the C40 so all the voice commands work.
I have a C40 too and love it (except the tires). Fjord Blue with Blue interior
My mother looked at it and test drove one here in Denver this week. She loved the look of the outside but the minute we sat down inside the no cluster, everything in the touchscreen she couldn’t get past it. I get the cost cutting but I think my mom would have paid an extra $1000.00 to get a volume knob, real switches for the seat heaters and the rear windows.
My 72 year old mother got the dual motor about a month ago after driving a 2000 Toyota sienna since it was new. I think the EX30 has committed two unforgivable sins.
1) No gauge cluster or equivalent, the speed is displayed on the center screen only.
2) No feedback whatsoever from the steering.
I’d never buy one, but hey my mom loves the little thing and the lease incentive was pretty good.
Difficulty: Exit music is the Orgy cover of Blue Monday, not the original.
As much as I (and many of us) like to rag on excessive use of tech, there are a few real dealbreakers for me, usually around making sure I have instant, dial-based control over temperatures, fan speed, and volume. My older car (2001) has an auto climate control and I still curse it every time I have to click a button 15 times for each degree when a dial would have done it in half a second.
It was so adorable the way people used to argue about HVAC sliders vs dials.
Yeah, but, “how does it feel”?