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Top Gear

Volvo EX30 Driving, Engines & Performance

Driving What is it like to drive? It's certainly decent down the road. The steering is quick off-centre but disconcertingly light even in its weightiest of three settings. It took us a couple of hours to acclimatise. Once you're keyed into it though, this is a fairly agile car, exploiting its smallness and disguising its rather porky mass. The rear-drive traction keeps things neutral under power. Impressively, it combines this with a firm yet well-damped ride that polishes off big bumps and small irritations with little fuss or noise. To us it actually rides better than the larger Volvo EX40, and it's massively better than the wallowy Zeekr X. The brakes meld regen and friction seamlessly. Advertisement - Page continues below What happens when I put my foot down? The Extended Range Single Motor one (268bhp, 253lb ft) does 0-62mph in the low fives. More than quick enough. You'll be wondering why the Twin Motor Performance version (422bhp, 400lb ft) – a £40k+ Volvo mini-SUV – needs a 0-62mph time of 3.6 seconds. The chief engineer told us it doesn't, but they're the same motors as used in other Geely brands that share this platform, including the Smart #1 Brabus, and he couldn't see the point of de-rating them. So, 3.6s it is. Its suspension is tuned to feel very similar to the Single Motor EX30. "This is not a sports car," says Volvo. No kidding. On wet roads in the UK, we did find it broke traction on slippery roundabouts under throttle. Turns out there is such a thing as too much power. In normal mode it declutches its front motor in gentle driving. Performance mode keeps it engaged all the time, but you'll need to delve into the menus to activate that, so we doubt you'll ever bother. It's a Volvo, so no doubt chocka with safety assistance? Yup, you get all the forward alerts for vehicles and pedestrians. Side alerts warn you if you're about to open a door on a cyclist or car, or reverse into crossing traffic. There are 360-degree parking cameras too. Advertisement - Page continues below In our experience, in everyday driving the driver monitoring system is just too over-excitable and bongs and beeps at you if you even dare to look in your mirrors or at the screen. Perhaps not the greatest idea to put every single function in there, then. The motorway adaptive cruise and lane centring system nudges the steering and speed smoothly enough though. As usual you can change the time interval to the car in front. But again only by taking a deep menu-dive, when it's usual for cars to have a steering wheel button for this. You might well want to adjust it at speed, say when merging from a quiet motorway where following close is silly, to a busy one where following close is necessary to discourage other traffic from jumping into the gap. Hmm. Tell me about the range. It's a max of 295 miles WLTP for the 18in wheels and rear-drive. We saw a 245-mile range (efficiency of 3.8mi/kWh from that 64kWh unit) which isn't bad at all in varying conditions. On a cold UK day we found the Twin Motor slightly less impressive. Some road-tester driving with the cabin heating on saw a projected range of less than 200 miles. Not great when WLTP suggests a minimum of 280 miles. It's also worth noting the smaller-battery version (49kWh and 215 miles WLTP) doesn't get a heat pump in the UK, so it might be a 150-mile car in winter. Eep. It also still weighs roughly the same as the bigger battery versions, because the lithium-iron phosphate battery is heavier than lithium-ion. What's the Cross Country version like? Well, the CC rides 19mm higher than the standard car, with 12mm of that down to chassis alterations and 7mm from chunkier tyres. If the standard EX30 on bigger wheels is perhaps a little firm in places, the Cross Country is set up for rough roads and is slightly softer. The ride is good, but there's still no feedback from the steering and you get more road and wind noise transmitted into the cabin. We doubt anyone is actually going to use one of these for proper off-roading, and if you're on road the range drops to 265 miles. You can also only have the 422bhp powertrain. We'd avoid. Highlights from the range the fastest 315kW Twin Motor Performance Ultra 69kWh 5dr Auto 0-62 3.6s CO2 0 BHP 422.4 MPG Price £45,795 the cheapest 200kW Single Motor Core 51kWh 5dr Auto 0-62 5.7s CO2 0 BHP 268.2 MPG Price £32,995 the greenest 315kW TM Perf Cross Country Ultra 69kWh 5dr Auto 0-62 3.7s CO2 0 BHP 422.4 MPG Price £46,995 Variants We Have Tested 6 Volvo EX30 Cross Country review: what exactly is the point of this £47k, 422bhp crossover?