The Volvo EX60 Has A Panini Press Charging Door, Which Is Actually Smart

I’m standing in the giant mall contained within the Oculus that near the World Trade Center in New York and in front of me is the all new EX60. Technically, we’ve seen the car before, but this was my first up close look, and there was one detail I hadn’t noticed.

It’s a rough time for charging doors. The sudden changeover from CCS to NACS chargers for many automakers has meant that cars not designed for Tesla’s elegantly short Supercharger cords are often a huge ass-pain to charge via chunky adapters.

One of the big issues is that Teslas are designed from the ground-up to access Superchargers and have charging doors that far to the rear of the taillight, typically. With CCS cars, there’s no real standardized charging style and so you often get the doors on the front fender.

Even worse, the doors open at an angle like a normal door, which means if you’re on the wrong side you have to sometimes awkwardly invert it around the charging door to get it to connect. This sucks.

Volvo has solved this problem with a native NACS port directly at the rear of the car. Behold, the Panini Press Charging Door.

This Is A Good Design

I was lucky enough to get a tour of the new EX60 from Garry Kalsaria, Head of Future Vehicles, Volvo Car USA, and Rekha Meena, Global Head of Color, Material, and Finish Design. While a lot of the touches were familiar to me and felt extremely Volvo, which is to say thoughtfully designed and minimalist with light tones, none of that’s really a surprise.

What struck me, though, was when they opened up the charging door. Whoa. It is the sturdiest charging door I’ve ever seen, and it offers a few obvious advantages.

While it’s not the only car with a charging door that opens up (the Model Y does as well, for instance), the concept is sound. You don’t want water or snow or whatever building up while you’re charging, and this door provides at least a small amount of protection.

This is also a chonky boy, with two beefy arms. I’m always nervous about flimsy charging doors and have felt like I was going to accidentally destroy a few of them (sister company Polestar has ludicrously thin-feeling doors). I played with this door and it’s robust.

It’s also wide, and accessing it from multiple angles is probably easier than your average setup. While it’s now correctly set up on the rear fender, this is a global car and different markets have different setups (actually, if they put the charging door on the other side in Europe or wherever, it probably can be the same part).

And, finally, the charging door is just a mechanical thing you press and not some annoying, automatic contraption. Peter called it a “panini press” in our Slack and I am now 100% going to only refer to it as the “Panini Press Door” and I ask all of you to do the same.

The EX60 Doesn’t Do Most Of The Annoying EV Things

One thing that an up close look at a vehicle shows off are details you might not be able to glean from a press release. There are a few common features on modern EVs that I can’t stand, and the EX60 handles the most annoying ones quite well.

The first is the charging door and, as discussed, it has a real, non-powered one. It gets points for that. The second is that the glovebox isn’t opened by a button and, instead, the EX60 gets a central glovebox that’s mechanically actuated. Good job Volvo. This design is also on the soon-to-depart EX30 and I think it’s smart.

One of the biggest sore spots with me, obviously, is the lack of a frunk, and the EX60 has a large and usable one (in this case I couldn’t get a photo because it was being used for display car stuff, but it’s there). Thank you!

Like a lot of modern cars, the HVAC controls are on the screen. I do not love this, but at some point it feels like complaining about the lack of a cigarette lighter. I’m hopeful more automakers will re-embrace buttons.

Overall, The EX60 Is A Competitively-Priced EV In An Overly Competitive Category

Price-comparing modern electric cars is interesting because no one talks about range with gas vehicles, and the tech is advancing so quickly. The cheapest RWD Model Y is $39,990 and gets 321 miles of range, whereas the cheapest AWD Model Y is $57,990 and gets 306 miles.

Here’s what Volvo is offering:

EX60 P6 Up to 307 miles
EX60 P10 AWD Up to 322 miles
EX60 P12 AWD** Up to 400 miles

EX60 P6 Plus $58,400
EX60 P6 Ultra $65,000
EX60 P10 AWD Plus $60,750
EX60 P10 AWD Ultra $67,350

The P6 is the RWD version and tops out at 307 miles, though we’ll see what the final EPA tests show. The cheapest AWD has more range, but also costs more than a comparable Model Y. The P12 has the longest range at up to 400 miles (maybe pending wheel choice), but who knows what it’ll cost.

I’m an old-time Volvo guy, so the appeal is of a Volvo is stronger to me, but this is a super crowded space with the new Rivian R2 and Lucid Cosmos, although the pricing here seems to be pretty bang on competitive. I’d probably take this over a Model Y, but I’m not sure about an iX3.

I think if you want an electric Volvo, the company is aware that the EX30 launch was botched, as was the EX90’s rollout. The EX60 is the company’s chance to get it right. If the Panini Press Door is any sign, Volvo has possibly thought this one all the way through.

Top graphic images: Matt Hardigree; DepositPhotos.com