The decade of the hybrid may be upon us, but that doesn’t mean automakers are going to stop releasing new EVs. Volvo has been trickling out teasers and specs for its newest electric car, the EX60 crossover, for weeks. And now, it’s finally revealed the SUV in full.
Meant to stand alongside the gas-powered and hybrid XC60, the EX60 brings a similar design and proportions, albeit with a big of electric twang. There’s no grille, a minimalist interior with very few buttons,
Range and charging efficiency are Volvo’s biggest headline features here. There are three different powertrain configurations available, the most expensive of which can achieve up to 400 miles on a charge. The cheapest version is rear-wheel drive, which is pretty cool for a Volvo (up until the XC40’s rear-drive models were launched, there hadn’t been a RWD Volvo in over a quarter-century). Let’s get into it.
Some Parts Of This Car Are Looking Real Familiar
At first glance, the Volvo EX60 feels like it shares a lot of its design with the Polestar 3, a car built by its sister brand (both companies are owned by Chinese firm Geely). The nose has an eerily similar shape, as do the rear windows. But upon closer inspection, there are some distinctions, most notably the height of the roof toward the rear and the placement of the charging port.
In truth, the EX60 and the Polestar 3 don’t even share a platform. While the Polestar 3 is based on the second generation of Volvo’s Scalable Product Architecture platform (SPA2), the EX60 is based on a newer version of that platform, SPA3.
Even if the EX60 was just a reskinned Polestar, I wouldn’t be complaining. Polestars look phenomenal, and I feel like a lot of the design has carried over here, even if the two cars aren’t carbon copies of one another. The Volvo is the slipperier of the two, with a drag coefficient of 0.26 (vs. 0.29 for the Polestar).
The interior follows Volvo’s recent ultra-minimalist approach, with few buttons and a couple of screens for accessing information and controls. Thankfully, there are still some physical buttons on the oval two-spoke steering wheel, and what looks to be a volume scroll wheel and skip track buttons under the main screen. So at least there’s that.
This Type Of Range Is Becoming The New Standard
Earlier this month, Volvo made a big deal about how the EX60 would be able to go up to 400 miles between charges. That’s pretty good, but as my colleague Matt pointed out, it feels like 400 miles is becoming the new standard for an acceptable EV range (that number used to be 300 miles, but most EVs these days can do that type of distance with ease).
Furthermore, that 400 miles of range is only available on the top “P12” variant, which comes with two motors and standard all-wheel drive. A middle-of-the-road P10 model, also all-wheel drive, gets just 320 miles of estimated range. The base P6 model, which is rear-drive only, gets 310 miles of range. If you want the most range, you’ll also have to wait the longest; the two lesser trims start deliveries in the summer, with the P12 coming “soon after that.”
No matter the trim, Volvo promises the EX60 can add 173 miles of range in 10 minutes when attached to a 400kW fast charger (which is a weird metric that can’t be compared to anything else, but Volvo seems proud of). There’s also a NACS charging port as standard, meaning access to Tesla’s network of 75,000 Superchargers.
There’s A Cross Country, But It’s Not Terribly Different
Not one to ignore America’s ever-growing lust for soft-roaders, Volvo is also launching a Cross Country version of the EX60 alongside the normal version. In Volvo-speak, “Cross Country” is code for a light brushing of off-road-minded upgrades, similar to what Subaru does with its Wilderness trims.
In this case, the EX60 Cross Country gets wider, black plastic wheel arches, stainless steel skidplates front and rear, different wheels, and an air suspension system that, in its normal operating position, is 20 millimeters (0.7 inches) higher than the standard EX60. In its highest setting, the air springs can add another 20 mm of height to clear especially tough obstacles.
Volvo’s a bit more vague about when the Cross Country will come to America, saying only that it’s available to pre-order in some European markets, with more availability “to follow later this year.” Available in just the upper P10 and P12 trim levels, it’s also a bit worse on range, with the P10 variant rated at 300 miles per charge. Volvo says the P12 will have a longer range, but stopped short of actually publishing a number.
There’s no word on pricing for the EX60 right now, so it’s hard to say whether the car will be competitive in what is an ever-shrinking EV market (in the U.S., anyway). Considering the handsome looks and comfortable range numbers, I don’t think it’ll be a flop. But whether it actually succeeds will be down to how it’s positioned in the market.
Top image: Volvo
I’m usually a fan of minimalist interiors but that really doesn’t look good. Nothing is well integrated. It’s all just tacked on with edges sticking out all over.
It takes real skill to put that much design effort to look like there was no design effort, at all. Bravo.
Exterior looks nice, though. Not really my style but I could rock it.
Obvious complaints are well covered by now, but the shot through the rear window implies that the windows can’t roll all the way down, which is a crime for anyone who likes sticking their elbow out the window. Nice green though.
The exterior looks good, but that minimalist interior is a hard no. I’m much happier with the integrated screen look and some actual controls, not whatever blank wall design they’re going for here.
The minimalism is so annoying. Insert joke about Americans needing 40 cup holders but only having two that can’t even fit a yeti thermos cup is ridiculous. I don’t like sitting on my wallet or having my phone in the pocket, looks like I’m down to only cup holder now. Why the h*ck am I keeping my sunglasses in the door card instead of normal storage cubby? I appreciate a clean design as much as anyone but sheesh.
To me this seems like what the future of what Polestar will be they will just move the brand under Volvo (which it probably should have been in the first place). Seems goofy to have the same vehicle competing against each other especially since they are both luxury brands be different if Volvo was more along the lines of Chevy and Polestar was Caddilac or Toyota/Lexus.
A Volvo without proper door handles? Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Also.. we need to talk about that steering wheel. You seriously couldn’t design something more generic and bland.
Wait where exactly are the door handles? Don’t tell me it’s those little ear-like things right underneath the windows.
I thought Volvo is about safety, which electronic door handles without an obvious manual backup are the opposite of.
Agreed about the steering wheel, plus the whole buttonless interior in general. It was the Swedes who, just three years ago, released the study on how much safer physical buttons are (https://www.carscoops.com/2022/08/physical-buttons-much-easier-to-use-than-infotainment-screens-study-finds/). I guess Volvo didn’t bother reading that one?
What I learned so far having EVs, I care more about the charging speed compared to the range. A 300 miles EV can give you 2-3 hours of highway driving, by then my bladder and back are asking for a stop but the Equinox EV will take +30 min to recover a big chunk of that. If I had a H/K model it will be 15 min, more aligned to the duration of my stop (bathroom break + walking dogs).
I hope the next generations of EVs are at least capable of 350kw charging across the board.
Oh man. I think these new Volvos are gorgeous on the outside, but the awful cost-reduction Tesla interior makes them a complete non-starter for me. As a Volvo fan, it’s really sad to witness.
Also, classic Autopian- the EV market is not shrinking, the world is a much bigger than whatever BS is going on in your country right now. Even in the USA, EVs are not on the decline. The EVs that have been sold are not going anywhere, and there are ton of better priced, better performing EVs on the way. Bolstering that, a wave of very affordable 2nd and 3rd gen EVs is about to hit the used market. These vehicles will find owners.
EV drivers are incredibly loyal to the technology once they have been exposed to the lifestyle. They will not be migrating back to ICE in significant numbers.
I agree I think my Polestar 2 is an okay point between buttons and screens but could use a few more buttons. These have went the opposite direction and just to much screen and way to simple looking. Some people hate the 2 interior but at least for me it feels like I am sitting in a car still.
I think the exterior is *fine*. Not great, not terrible, but *fine* in a restrained, ultra-modern kind of way. The interior is also fine, though I would like more physical controls. What I fear, and what make me want to get out the torches and pitchforks, are the reports of “integrated AI”. Keep that nonsense out of my car. There is zero reason for it, and it just adds computing complexity, cost, and gives an opening for subscription-based basic features.
I don’t see any real door handles so I’m out.
Now, I’m no fancy, big-city automotive designer, but I feel like that massive, empty center console area is a missed opportunity to bring back that waterfall design Volvo had in the mid-aughts.
Seriously, what is that weird space? It looks like I could pull it open to unveil a spice rack.
That center stack/screen looks like something you stand in front of at LabCorp to check-in for your bloodwork appointment. I’m good.
There’s no word on pricing for the EX60 – If it’s anything like the EX90 or the current XC90 and XC60 it will be expensive. I agree with Nsane’s comment below that the minimalist interior is better than BMW, Merc, etc, but I still hate it. I blame Tesla. The steering wheel looks terrible too, but also still better than what BMW has been teasing.
EDIT- it’s a quartic steering wheel. They’ve given us a steering wheel from the Austin Allegro.
I think it’s nice looking. It maintains some of the classic Volvo design cues but keeps with their current lineup of relatively clean and minimalistic styling. The range and charging are in line with the other second generation BEVs that are coming out such as the iX3 and whatever that upcoming Mercedes EQ crossover thing is.
Where the Volvo absolutely wipes the floor with those two is the interior design. The BMW’s is overcrowded and overwrought with too many fucking screens. I hope the current trend of having a giant screen that wraps around the entire dashboard dies a painful death. That’s some Chinese market tomfoolery that no one else wants.
Mercedes’ brain genius move to save their EVs is to make the entire fucking dashboard, console, etc. into one massive screen. It’s a layer of hell previously thought unimaginable and I don’t think I could come up with a more diabolical design if I tried. It’s absolute hell world.
But does this really deserve credit for its approach, or has everything just gotten so enshittified that this seems great by comparison? I’m leaning towards the latter, unfortunately. This still has all of the key functions in the screen, I don’t see conventional AC vents so I have no choice to assume that they’re trapped in menus for god knows what reason, and do you see a glovebox? I don’t either, and Volvo came up with the truly brilliant idea to put the control to open it in the infotainment screen on their first gen EVs.
All in all? I think this seems mostly fine. I’m not sure if I could live with the interface but I’m sure that the sorts of customers they’re targeting can, and like seemingly every high end car these days I’m sure appealing to the whims of the Chinese market what a high priority, so cramming everything into a screen may have been non-negotiable.
But we’ll see how much it costs…these really need to be in the 50s at this point if they want to compete in an American market that’s indifferent towards EVs on a good day. If the ICE and hybrid versions are cheaper people will gravitate towards those…and since BMW had already added a full $10,000 to the advertised starting price range of the iX3 I’m not optimistic.
I somewhat agree with your assessment here but I don’t think the new design trends from Volvo really match the reputation they’ve built up for so long.
I am in the minority around here in that I don’t mind the screens as long as they provide good UX design and don’t move all functions to the screen-based controls. You mention the lack of vent controls. Good eyes on that I missed it. But you’re right that might mean they are leaning on those controls too much and this is not going to be the strong launch they need with this vehicle. My problem with Volvo’s design here is that they are still using the tacked-onto-the-dash-iPad design from ten year ago! If you want to put screens all of the interior, I would be ok with it if they looked integrated into the dash and other interior elements. Many are overdone but at least MB has them designed so it looks like they were always a part of the car and not an afterthought.
For this reason I’ll disagree that Volvo interiors are better. They used to be. I used to have an XC40 and it was great from that standpoint. This one leans too much into the minimalist, buttonless void so no thanks. Seats look amazingly comfy though.
I predict there will be discounts on these fairly quickly. That’s not uncommon for Volvo when compared to their German competitors but I don’t think these are going to do well here. Perhaps European consumers will like them better outside of Germany. I’m sure they’ll do very well in the home market.
Not stated anywhere is how these are going to fare with all the tariffs. I’m sure that’s a lot of the reason there’s no pricing info yet. They don’t know what the world will look like in a week much less when they launch.
I really like GM on their EVs, specially Cadillac. Big screens but still a good amout of buttons and traditional approach to things like air vents or seat adjusments.
I’ve stated my affection for the Cadillac EVs many times
From the angles shown, the tail lights and rear hatch are unattractive. I’m not sure why, but the hatch gives me maybe Renault vibes? Then it was flattened and made awkward looking. I look forward to seeing other angles of the rear to see if that is still the case, or just not a great angle.
But alas, it fails the interior test. “Is there a tablet glued to the dash, just sticking up stupidly?” If the answer is yes, then I’ve lost interest.