Volvo EX30 - long-term-review

Famously, there are only two guarantees in life, to which we can add a third: you will never, ever lose a nuclear yellow Volvo EX30 in a car park. Even if you try to hide it.

Not that we’ve been trying, of course. Because we’ve now had a fair bit of seat time in Volvo’s baby EV and continue to be impressed with its design. Clean. Chunky without feeling bulky. Not too massive.

Same can’t be said of the rear, mind. It’s obviously a small SUV, so won’t rival something like a long-wheelbase Range Rover, but it can feel a little cramped in the back. Probably fine for young children or impossibly adorable, impossibly cute small dogs, s’pose, but I don’t have any of those. I have a pair of elderly parents, who can sometimes struggle to lift their legs high enough over the sill to get in.

And once in, I’d have to agree with user Chinstrap: the front seats aren’t enormously comfortable. There’s little lumbar support, no way to tilt the base and the cushion itself just feels a little flat. This might not be entirely relevant, but I had to move my creaky, peeling, ageing BMW recently, and straight after the EX30 the Bimmer’s seats felt like a Rolls-Royce.

I’d also have to agree with Reviewer Anon and Stufan about the annoyance of repeatedly turning off the assistance with every drive. However, all new cars have this, and at least on the EX30 it’s achieved very quickly. So that’s manageable. And there’s at least one steering wheel button you can dedicate to deactivating one of the assists.

J1mR noted the keys, and it’s something I’m not really on board with either – there’s no on/off button for the EX30. At all. The main fob doesn’t even have any lock buttons, it’s entirely keyless – you just approach, get in, and go. When you arrive, you don’t turn anything off, you just stick it into park, get out, walk away and hope it locks (it always does, don’t worry).

There’s a separate spare ‘card’ key, which if you wave over the B pillar does manually lock it, and because I’m old, I do it that way.

TimoHelsinki: I’ve not personally experienced any huge gremlins or bugs. Sometimes the screen takes an age to wake up when you get in, but it’s never impeded a swift exit, that’s for sure. I’ll keep an eye out and let you know if that changes.

The biggest thing I’m struggling with, though, is the touchscreen – not because it doesn’t work, it does, pretty flawlessly – but with the layout and functionality. Having to constantly look left to check speed is not ideal, and this car hasn’t got a head-up display.

And having temperature and climate controls spread out over two separate screens isn’t helpful either. You can’t quickly or easily adjust temps on the move. So picking up this broken record once more: buttons and physical dials, really rather useful.

Despite all of these quirks, I’m in broad agreement with Peterson (along with Reviewer Anon and TimoHelsinki, again), that… overall it still feels like a success. Time will tell if the touchscreen or the seats or the key thing drives me up the wall, but so far the EX30 has slotted into life nicely, and it’s still a great thing to drive.

More on that next time…