VOLVO EX30 EXTENDED RANGE ULTRA
£42,045
E co warrior. Strange term eh? War is surely the most ecologically catastrophic of all human activity. Anyway, spoiler alert, the EX30 wins TopGear’s Eco Warrior of the Year award (see p96). It emerges from a green factory using a reuse/recycle/reduce strategy. It gets down the road on relatively little electricity. So the lifetime carbon footprint, including manufacture, is less than half that of a small petrol crossover.
But is it a car you’d want? If no one buys it, the planet gains nothing.
A small car is greener than a big one, which is why we really wish there were a properly small and light mainstream EV. This isn’t that, but by Volvo standards this is smaller, so it doesn’t replace the XC40. By other measures it’s midi rather than mini. Same dimensions, even height, as a VW ID.3 actually. Same length as a Volvo 440 hatch, if anyone remembers that.
It’s almost ridiculously quick. Even the slowest EX30 makes the one old Volvo you definitely will remember, the yellow peril Volvo 850R estate, look like a slug. The twin motor version matches today’s 850R, the BMW M3 Competition Touring, from 0–62. If not in other metrics of excitement.
The 428bhp twin motor EX30 starts at just £41,000. Yet it doesn’t actually feel like it’s flinging itself down the road at every tickle of the accelerator. They built in a slight delay so you have time to brace yourself. Why does a little Volvo crossover need a 3.6secs 0–62 time? The chief engineer told me it doesn’t, but they’re the same motors as used in Geely group platform mates including the Smart #1 Brabus. He couldn’t see the point of derating them. The twin motor’s suspension is tuned to feel very similar to the single motor. “This is not a sports car.”
The steering in both versions is quick off-centre but so disconcertingly light that I took a couple of hours to find my groove with it. It’s fairly agile, exploiting its smallness and disguising its rather porky mass. Even in the RWD one, things stay neutral under power. Impressively, it combines this with a cushioned yet well damped ride that polishes off big bumps and small irritations with little fuss or noise. The brakes meld regen and friction seamlessly. In the RWD, we saw 3.8mpkWh, equivalent to 245 miles of real range.
The front seats are soft yet supportive, but in the back the tight legroom and high floor raise your
