saying goodbye to a ‘cutie’ with surmountable flaws

Our car tester Rutger drove for four weeks with the most affordable new Volvo you can buy: the electric Volvo EX30. Will it be a tough goodbye?

There are people who can get away with more shit than other people. They arrive late, forget your birthday, stain your shirt, but then they look at you and you can’t get angry. I have that with the Volvo EX30. It is a wonderful car with a long list of flaws.

Last weekend I drove back and forth to Berlin with the Volvo. For all the non-EV drivers who think I spent HOURS at an endless number of charging stations: I left the Luftwaffen Museum at 11:15 and was back home at 5:15 PM – 557 kilometers with two charging stops. One for lunch, so the battery was almost completely full when we swallowed the last currywurst. And one for tea, where the car was already at 83% when we had finished our cake and drink. While 68% would have been enough to get home.

In short: it didn’t take me a second longer to complete this trip because the EX30 is electric. And every time I walked to the car I thought: “what a cutie”. If I had to park in a tight parking garage: “how nice to drive a compact car”.

You can fix strange behavior

Earlier in the test we already mentioned some shortcomings of the EX30: the screen restarts once a week, sometimes in the middle of the ride. There is a rubber cap on the charging port instead of a cover. The soundbar sounds muddy. A few more things were added in the last week. The key has no buttons to lock the car. The car is locked by walking away, or by touching the driver’s door handle. But if you come from the other side of the car, you will have to take a detour, because the passenger door does not have that function. My phone regularly does not connect automatically to the car, so I have to click three times to do this manually.

The Google system on which the car runs neatly guides you along charging stations, but is sometimes a bit elusive in its choices. He let me charge along the highway even though I would arrive there with a 44% battery. While he does let me arrive at my final destination with a 10% battery. So you have to learn to work with the system a bit. Skipping a proposed charging stop is enough, then Google will come up with something new.

Minuses, mainly software-related

The EX30 is limited to 180 km/h because no one should really want to go faster. I can live with that just fine. The fact that the cruise control is limited to 130 km/h is not annoying anywhere, except on the Autobahn. On an almost empty road I also want to be able to set 140 or 150, actually.

But none of these annoyances have stopped me from loving the EX30. I also started waving at other EX30 riders and yes, they usually wave back. It drives smoothly and comfortably. The interior is beautiful. The driver assistance systems (partly disabled) contribute to wonderfully relaxed long-distance cruising.

I expect that when I drive this car again in six months, most of the annoyances will have been removed with software updates. The car also has CarPlay and I can use my phone as a key. So I would tentatively recommend the car, as long as you don’t need the back seat to transport tall people.

For more reviews of electric cars, follow the updates of the Bright Duration Test.