Volvo EX30 - long-term-review

It’s 2025, and there’s an app for that. Want to know exactly when to run off for a pee during a movie? There’s an app for that. Want to simulate stapling stuff without wasting precious staples? There’s an app for that. Want to do… absolutely nothing? Amazingly, there’s an app for that.

What about if you want to control your car? Yep, there’s an app for that too. Though, unlike Brosnan’s Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies, the app TopGear.com is currently finding an incredible novelty won’t let you remotely control a beautiful, bulletproof E38 BMW 7 Series from the back seat and hoon it around a car park evading baddies with guns.

No, we’re on the Volvo Cars app, which – once you’re logged in and signed up – lets you control a limited number of functions on your, that’s right, Volvo car. We’ve got a luminous yellow EX30, so that’s the Volvo car that pops up on our screen. (There’s a dedicated Volvo EX30 app too, but the main one offers a bit more functionality.)

Look! You can set the cabin temperature from the comfort of your home before you get in! That way, the car’s either a) toasty in winter, or b) cool in summer. Seeing as it’s Britain, mostly you need a).

Elsewhere, you can remotely lock and unlock it, though ours didn’t actually… work the first time around. Did the second, though. And the third. And fourth and fifth because it was fun.

If it’s plugged in, you can set it to charge, too, and use the app – and by extension your phone – as a digital key.

Even more amusingly, you can flash the headlights and honk the horn, which basically makes this a life-size luminous yellow prank. Hit the horn/light icon, and before you can regress to being a small child, it checks to see if you’re “sure you want to honk and flash the lights”. Oh Volvo, TopGear.com is VERY SURE. Someone leaning or walking or breathing too close to your precious EX30? HONK THEM. Joy.

You can also see the state of charge and cycle through some stats: our car is currently on 3,326 miles, with the most recent trip – a glorious hotride through traffic-soaked London and down a traffic-soaked motorway and into a traffic-soaked town – showing an average consumption rate of 28.5kWh/100 miles. That’s 3.5mpkwh. Average speed? 20mph. Joy.

Admittedly, this is not news to anyone who’s got a new-ish car, but having been raised on a diet of physical keys and zero apps, it’s a new experience. Will it last beyond the novelty? Probably not. Maybe Volvo can programme in a fart button, then our minds might change. Though, there’s probably an app for that.