Volvo EX30 Cross Country review: soaks up UK roads well, but can we have less power please?

What is this?

Volvo describes its littlest electric car, the EX30, as a ‘shot of Volvo espresso’. All of the Swedish firm’s best assets distilled into a squat, petite package. Yet the truth feels somewhat different. The EX30 wilfully diverts from a number of Volvo useability tenets and feels more like a broadly successful attempt at ‘Car 2.0’; the fabled Apple car had it been bred in Sweden rather than Silicon Valley, perhaps.

You’ll have been living under an especially large IKEA meatball to have missed the hullabaloo around its launch and the consternation that everything had been channelled into a central touchscreen – even the speed readout. Yep, in a safety-conscious Volvo. But then the EX30 counters with its taut, compact design and some surprisingly punchy power figures, not to mention its rather attainable, barely-over-£30k entry price. Lease deals look good too.

So what’s new here?

This is the EX30 Cross Country, and it’s Volvo grinding a few of its more traditional beans into the espresso machine. Its ‘XC’ cars have always been thoroughly likeable. They’re typically a traditional two-box Volvo estate car with its ride height cranked up and some rougher body cladding tacked on. They look subtly ace and can scurry over surfaces plenty of crossovers and SUVs can’t (or don’t).

Perhaps the perfect way for the little ’30 to win its sceptics over, then. Its transformation follows the standard XC script, riding 19mm higher thanks to 12mm of chassis work and another 7mm of (optional) knobbly tyre. There’s more grey cladding than usual, etched with topography from the Swedish Arctic and helping the EX30 look less computer, more car. The cladding between the rear lights has more than a whiff of Challenge-pack Ferrari F355 in its aesthetic. Or is that just us?

Either way, it’s a successful visual makeover if you desire an EX30 that feels just a mite more traditional. Just don’t expect a set of analogue dials to have suddenly sprouted from its dashboard.

Still screen-biased then?

That’s the EX30’s schtick and the Cross Country doesn’t shy from it. A walkaround by its design team does at least explain the environmental bent of its interior layout; keeping stuff as simple and symmetrical as possible ensures left- and right-hand-drive cars have a near-identical parts roster, right down to a centrally placed glovebox. Which is also much safer to use when you’re driving solo and need to quickly grab some sunglasses to combat winter sun.

Bringing the electric window switches central, meanwhile, relocates their wiring to benefit weight distribution. “It’s a small car but we optimised the s*** out of it,” is the cheekily succinct way one designer puts it.

Do you get used to it?

Eventually. Younger, tech-savvier buyers – the ones which Volvo surely wants to snare to galvanise its future – will adapt quickly, I’m sure. Glancing away from the road to see your speed never truly feels right, however, especially in Wales where the ebb and flow of 60mph rural climes and 20mph villages can be near constant.

Four button presses to alter your level of brake regen also feels excessive when several of its EV rivals pop those adjustments behind permanently available paddleshifters. Fewer physical controls further shrinks one of the smallest carbon footprints of any EV on sale, of course.

Such green mentality does make it more curious the Cross Country only comes in dual-motor, AWD form. Which means a total of 422bhp. That’s split unevenly, the front motor producing 154bhp and the rear 268bhp, and sure enough, you can feel that during higher cornering forces and with those knobblier, all-terrain tyres gripping regular tarmac.

Never anything wild, of course, but there’s a tangible shimmy if you get on the power early out of a corner, but with real composure behind it to ensure the XC is a simple and occasionally rather fun car to navigate greasy country roads in. It rides well on UK surfaces, too, its recalibrated suspension and larger tyre sidewall clearly working a charm.

Are there modes to play with?

Turn your gaze back to the touchscreen and you can toggle three levels of steering weight and a trio of powertrain modes, though it’s still bombastically quick in ‘regular’. Its 3.7sec 0-62mph time is a whole second quicker than that F355 and – for so many reasons – we’d rather Volvo offered this as a simpler, single-motor car with a still sprightly 268bhp.

Volvo claims 270 miles of range on the WLTP cycle when its 65kWh (useable) battery is full. Less than a similarly specified stock EX30, and a figure you can probably slice another ten per cent from with the optional off-road rubber. So 200 miles in the real world, perhaps, with 153kW max DC charging when you need to top it back up.

Would the Cross Country makeover be undermined with only rear-wheel drive? I’d argue not, given the EX30 doesn’t ride high enough to actually cross the Arctic peaks it so visually references.

It'd be cheaper too, right?

That’s the EX30 Cross Country’s larger sticking point. It balances futuristic tech with styling and dynamics more rooted in the traditional, a combination which makes it a thoroughly appealing oddball to potter around in. The ebullience of its design team is evident in many of its touches.

But it’s £47,060 (or £45,560 with Volvo’s current, government-aping discount) and the experience never fully tallies with that. We rather love the eco-minded recycled materials inside – and the deliberately simple layout and airiness they complement – but minimalist feelings arguably need more minimalist pricing. Unless we’re talking GMA T.50s, of course. This is a good car, but a single-motor Cross Country that bombilated around £35k would feel much closer to a great one.