Tested: 2025 Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Bends Reality

About two years ago, Volvo announced the EX30, a compact electric crossover that headlined with an audacious base price around $35,000. A single-motor version would anchor the low end of the lineup and entice younger buyers into the Volvo fold, while a performance-oriented dual-motor version would pad profit margins with a much higher sticker price. That was the plan back in 2023, but as you may have heard, there’s been a bit of turmoil in the car market since then—particularly for imports, EVs, and cars at the lower end of the price spectrum. The EX30, belonging to all three of those cohorts, is in a particularly fraught position, so Volvo did the logical thing and trimmed the lineup. Go ahead and take a wild guess which EX30 variant is on sale now. If you think it’s the bare-bones affordable one, we have a bridge in Jönköping to sell you.HIGHS: Bonkers acceleration, admirable efficiency, tidy dimensions.The EX30 Twin Motor Performance starts at $46,195 for the Plus trim, while our Ultra-trim test car goes for $47,895. There’s not much difference in pricing between the two because there’s barely any difference in the trims, with the Ultra including extra driver-assist features—automatic rear braking, Volvo’s Pilot Assist lane-keeping and adaptive cruise, and a 360-degree camera system. The challenge for the uplevel EX30 is that it’s based on a car that was aimed at a much lower price point, and evidence of that fiscal discipline abounds. Connoisseurs of the modern Volvo interior experience will find no crystal shifters or gray ash veneer here. Also: no dedicated rear window switches up front, no key fob, no gauges in front of the driver, and no knobs or buttons whatsoever besides the stalks on either side of the steering wheel and the multipurpose buttons on the wheel itself. The tinted glass roof doesn’t open, nor does it have an interior shade. There’s no start/stop button. Your primary interface with the car is a touchscreen that, at 12.3 inches, is smaller than some current iPads. All of this is framed as stark Scandinavian minimalism, and Volvo at least has the cred to pitch it that way. But in practice you might wish for a few more non-virtual buttons and physical controls. Sometimes, you put the EX30 in Park and step out and the car remains awake, your music blaring—there’s no button to push on the featureless black rectangle known as the key tag. You can use your phone as a key (a.k.a. digital key plus) as long as you have an iPhone 11 or newer, and there’s an EX30 app that can spoof some of the functions of a physical fob, like unlocking the doors. But mostly you just trust the car to power up when you climb in and put itself to bed when you leave, even if that occasionally means that passersby catch the final refrains of “Dr. Feelgood” as you open the door. At least the buttons on the right side of the steering wheel can control the stereo volume—if they’re not being deployed to adjust the exterior mirrors. Yes, Volvo clearly spent plenty of time with a Tesla or two.LOWS: Bare-bones interior aesthetic, indifferent handling, limited range.If the EX30’s spartan interior recalls a race car more than it does a traditional Volvo, so does its performance. Volvo predicted that the dual-motor EX30 would become its quickest car yet, and it was right. The EX30 is small—nearly seven inches shorter than a Jeep Compass—and narrow enough that you have to take the drivers out of a golf bag to fit clubs in the cargo area. It’s also light for an EV, with our test car weighing a relatively feathery 4189 pounds. But it packs 422 horsepower, and that’s a formula for righteous acceleration. Our example torched 60 mph in 3.3 seconds, which is awfully close to the starting-line jolt you’d get in a PDK-equipped Porsche 911. Reaching triple-digit speeds requires just 8.6 seconds. If the EX30’s quarter-mile sprint—11.8 seconds at 112 mph—doesn’t seem quite as keen as its off-the-line energy, that’s partly because the wee Volvo is approaching its 114-mph speed limiter by the end of the quarter. We can attest that it’s great fun to smoke V-8 Mustangs at stoplights with a small Volvo, particularly when it’s painted a shade of yellow that’s “inspired by the lichen on Swedish granite.”Fortunately, the EX30’s brakes are up to the task of erasing all this speed, hauling it down to a stop from 70 mph in 166 feet and from 100 mph in 331 feet. Of course, you needn’t touch the brake pedal much at all in daily driving if you engage one-pedal drive from the touchscreen. We preferred the more natural coasting setting, preferably when paired with the Performance AWD mode. The EX30’s 253-mile EPA-rated range—stout for a car with a modest 64-kWh battery—is goosed by the Volvo’s eco-minded standard drive mode, in which the front motor is dormant until called upon. Locking the wee SUV in AWD helps quell any wheelspin, but it might also cost you some range. More on the Volvo EX30Which is important given our car went only 160 miles on our 75-mph range test. Volvo says the EX30 can charge from 10 to 80 percent in less than 27 minutes on a DC fast-charger, and an 11.0-kW onboard AC charger will make for reasonably timely fill-ups at home. In our testing, however, its battery took 39 minutes to go from 10 to 90 percent on a DC hookup, with an average draw of only 83 kilowatts. Its peak rate never approached its 153-kW max. The EX30’s handling is best described as benign, with limits more in line with your small-crossover expectations—0.85 g on the skidpad, with the Michelin Primacy All Season tires gently proclaiming their preference for minimal noise and low rolling resistance over outright stick. Indeed, 69 decibels inside at 70 mph makes for a fairly quiet environment. There are three choices for steering effort, with the firmest one feeling like it would be our default setting. Speaking of default settings, the EX30’s invasive lane-keeping tech defaults to active. On the highway you don’t notice it as much, but it’s constantly tugging at the wheel on two-lane roads. Perhaps Volvo’s over-the-air-update department could see fit to rectify that.As for whether Volvo will ever get around to building the single-motor EX30 and attempting to realize its original thrifty-EV vision, that’s a hard maybe. They’re looking into it, but there’s no timeline. What is imminent is the EX30 Cross Country, an all-terrain offshoot that will send the price further upward. In the meantime, the EX30 Twin Motor Performance offers a glimpse of what might’ve been and what might still be. But if this is the only EX30 we ever get, at least we get the quickest Volvo ever built.VERDICT: Of course the quickest production Volvo ever built is a sleeper.SpecificationsSpecifications
2025 Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra
Vehicle Type: front- and rear-motor, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door wagon
PRICE

Base/As Tested: $47,895/$48,395
Options: Climate package (heated steering wheel and front seats), $500
POWERTRAIN

Front Motor: permanent-magnet synchronous AC, 154 hp, 148 lb-ft
Rear Motor: permanent-magnet synchronous AC, 268 hp, 253 lb-ft
Combined Power: 422 hp
Combined Torque: 400 lb-ft
Battery Pack: liquid-cooled lithium-ion, 64 kWh
Onboard Charger: 11.0 kW
Peak DC Fast-Charge Rate: 153 kW
Transmissions, F/R: direct-drive
CHASSIS

Suspension, F/R: struts/multilink
Brakes, F/R: 12.7-in vented disc/12.6-in vented disc
Tires: Michelin Primacy All Season
245/45R-19 M+S POL
DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: 104.3 in
Length: 166.7 in
Width: 72.3 in
Height: 61.2 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 56/37 ft3
Cargo Volume, Behind F/R: 32/14 ft3
Curb Weight: 4189 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS

60 mph: 3.3 sec
100 mph: 8.6 sec
1/4-Mile: 11.8sec @ 112 mph
Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 3.5 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 1.5 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 2.0 sec
Top Speed (gov ltd): 114 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 166 ft
Braking, 100–0 mph: 331 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.85 g
C/D FUEL ECONOMY AND CHARGING

Observed: 83 MPGe
75-mph Highway Range: 160 mi
Average DC Fast-Charge Rate, 10–90%: 83 kW
DC Fast-Charge Time, 10–90%: 39 min
EPA FUEL ECONOMY

Combined/City/Highway: 109/116/100 MPGe
Range: 253 mi
C/D TESTING EXPLAINEDEzra Dyer is a Car and Driver senior editor and columnist. He’s now based in North Carolina but still remembers how to turn right. He owns a 2009 GEM e4 and once drove 206 mph. Those facts are mutually exclusive.
Source: caranddriver.com