Bonkers Volvo electric leader stars in surprising ways
Immediately recognisable as a Volvo via its Thor’s cool hammer LED lighting elements, this EX30 Plus Twin Motor Performance’s taut surfaces and chunky stance certainly set it apart as different. Best of all it is. Very different. So different some would say it’s stupid. In the nicest of ways, that is.
Getting back to the look, there's no grille between those headlamps, leaving the Volvo badge and stripe to define it. An interesting look. Its sporty. But still it says nothing of what’s set to unfold. Walk up to it, key fob in pocket and it unlocks. Click the door open with that chunky door handle, and EX30 the first Volvo to use the EX prefix reserved for its future EVs, is quite literally ready for service.
Settle into Volvo’s deservedly award winning seats . They’re a pleasure. The rest of it is well built too. Refined, with clever storage spaces, the glovebox sits under the infotainment screen for easier driver access. Cupholders fold neatly away to free up space. EX30 makes good of its flat-floor design too. But its chunky looks are a compromise. The cramped rear cabin and boot make travelling distances more than two, maybe three-up, unrealistic.
Volvo EX30 is bare to the bone minimalist
Most striking about the cabin, however, is its simplicity. Bare to the bone, its minimalist with almost no switches. To reduce parts and allegedly make it cheaper to build. And sell. It simply has a single 12.3-inch portrait display centre stage for both dials and infotainment. Packing Volvo's latest Google-based interface with Maps and CarPlay. Audio is cute too. Courtesy of a sound bar across the dash. Rather than individual speakers
Still, while the system certainly looks the part, it's terribly annoying to use. Needs several ‘keystrokes’ to do anything simple. It takes huge attention off the road ahead to get anything else done. Safe? My arse! There’s only one shortcut button on the wheel. It needs six. Better still, just give us our knobs and buttons and leave the talking to the car to people who are happy talking to themselves.
We were also bothered by a consistent booming on the road. Sort of a bass drum acoustic we’d imagine you’d need to put up with underwater in a submarine. On the other hand, we loved the golf kart get in and go simplicity of driving the car. No need to turn it on, just get in prod the lever to Drive and go. A boon for those who want a quarter of the fuss to get going.
Recycled Volvo EX30 is quite cleverly built
The Volvo EX30 is quite cleverly built too. It uses recycled materials like waste denim, finished fishing nets, spent plastic bottles and wrecked PVC window frames to keep that carbon footprint even squeakier greener. More than a sixth of the car’s plastic, a sixth of the steel and a quarter of the aluminium is being used for the second or third time. On the road EX30 emits around 400 kilos of power-station CO2 a versus the combustion car’s 1.8 tonnes per year. So lifetime CO2 is about half that of a petrol equivalent.
Which leads us under the skin. One area where the Volvo EX30 leads the world is that it’s a traditionally badged car that’s built in China. Volvo is, after all, a Chinese brand. And EX30 shares its electric-only platform with the Smart #1 and other Geely and related models, like Zeekr.
This 315 kilowatt 541 Newton-metre dual-motor version is fuelled by a 64 kWh battery pack, for up to 450 km per charge at 18.0 kWh/100km. 80 percent of that charge is achievable in under half an hour at 153 kW on a fast-charging station. Cool. If you live in Stockholm or Paris. Now go find a charging station. Let alone a 200 kilowatt one in South Africa. Good luck! LOL.
The best performance bang for the buck in SA?
Getting back to basics, Volvo says that this its quickest-accelerating vehicle to date. It is stupidly fast. Supercar fast. Volvo promises 0-100 km/h in 3.6-seconds. We did it in 3.68. That’s probably the best performance by quite some margin, for the money on the local market. And among the top 20 quickest cars we have ever tested.
Steering is quick but numb. It feels as neat and compact as its stubby looks suggest. It really is quite fun to drive. Balanced and agile, if stiff and darty as it looks suggest. A little bump steer requires some focus. Keeps you wide awake when relishing in that supercar speed. Ride is solid but controlled, damping better than decent and it isolates road shock well.
The expected Volvo alphabet soup of driver assistants do try keep you and your EX30 out of trouble. Like automated emergency braking that even sees wayward pedestrians or cyclists before you do, detection lane-departure and keeping assist, and lane-centring adaptive cruise control. Safe as houses, they say.
The Volvo EX30 is so stupid, its sexy!
At the end of the day, this Volvo EX30 will linger in our memory for two reasons. One for its bonkers speed. Electric or otherwise. Ant two, for its minimalism. It’s so basic that its stupid. So stupid that it’s sexy. So sexy that we actually quite like the Volvo EX30. – Michele Lupini.
Testing & Images: Giordano Lupini
ROAD TESTED: Volvo EX30 Plus Twin Motor
Performance EV
Motors: 2x electric
Output: 315 kW 541 Nm combined
Drive: Direct AWD
Battery: 64 kWh lithium-ion
TESTED:
0-60 km/h: 1.77sec
0-100 km/h: 3.86 sec
0-120 km/h: 5.39 sec
0-160 km/h: 9.96 sec
400m: 12.3 sec @ 175 km/h
80-120 km/h: 2.72 sec
120-160 km/h: 4.58 sec
CLAIMED:
VMax: 180 km/h
Energy Use: 18.8 kWh/100 km
CO2: 0 g/km local
Range: 450 km
Warranty/Service: 5y 100K/5y 100K km
LIST PRICE: R1.11M
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