Living with a Volvo EX30: is it a case of form over function?

This is my Volvo EX30, a small electric SUV which I’ll be living with for around six months to see how it copes with daily driving duties. I’ve had just over a month to get to grips with this car, and on the whole it’s a really likeable little thing.

I love the way it looks, it always garners a look back after parking up, and the interior spec also looks wicked. This car has the “Pine” interior package, meaning it has light green upholstery which really lifts the cabin, and the recycled material on the dashboard and door cards looks great as well.

There are also some subtle details which amp up the premium feeling inside, such as the solid metal door handles and chunky steering column stalks. Everything you touch frequently feels high quality – things only get cheap and scratchy lower down. I can forgive this though because the EX30 is pretty affordable for such a desirable car.

So the interior looks way cooler than alternatives like the Ford Puma Gen-E or Kia EV3, but it’s not the most practical. Rear legroom is really tight, as my family found out when they came to visit and I put the Volvo into service as a taxi, and the boot isn’t massive either.

This doesn’t really bother me personally as it’s rare that I need to carry four people, however there is something which irks me a lot more than the lack of cabin space, and that’s the infotainment system.

Everything in this car is controlled through the touchscreen, and I mean everything – even opening the glovebox. I’m not going to jump on the motoring journalist bandwagon of moaning about mirror controls routed through the screen though – I set this once and haven’t touched them again.

The infotainment system itself is based on Google software and, while you do get Apple CarPlay, Android users like myself have to use the car’s native system – and it’s just not as good as using Android Auto.

You can’t split the screen between Google Maps and Spotify, although you do get shortcuts to pause and skip tracks, and it doesn’t always carry your music over from your phone like Android Auto would. Outside of media control, changing things like the following distance for the adaptive cruise control requires you to go through four different menus.

The climate control is also split across two different menus for some reason – one for fan speed and direction and one for temperature and heated seats. You also have two options for controlling the volume – a fiddly touchscreen slider or the infuriatingly unresponsive steering wheel buttons.

It’s just not intuitive enough for a system you rely on so heavily for everything, and it’s even more irritating when the driver attention warning yells at you if you look at the screen for too long.

But now I can move onto a couple of positives. It’s really easy to turn the irritating beeps and bongs off – it’s just two button presses. I’ve also programmed a button on the steering wheel to turn off the speed limit warning – which is the most intrusive system because it seems to keep getting the speed limit wrong.

I’ve also managed to circumnavigate a lot of these annoying menus using the brilliant voice controls. It’s based on Google Assistant, so you can talk to it in a natural tone of voice to do things like setting the temperature or playing a certain song on Spotify.

Volvo is rolling out an over-the-air update soon which will include some new shortcuts which are meant to make the system easier to use, and I’ll be sure to report back once my car has received the new software.

The EX30 is a really likeable car with loads of character. It looks great and I like the interior materials, but the software takes the shine off this otherwise excellent little car. Check back soon for a look at how it drives.

Living with a Volvo EX30 report 1: introduction

This is my new Volvo EX30. For the past few months I had been running our Volkswagen ID7 GTX, but after some eyelash fluttering from reviews editor Darren Cassey I surrendered the keys to the cavernous VW so he could use it to ferry his family around.

I was sad to see the ID7 go, but in fairness I don’t really have use for such an enormous car as a single man living alone – it’s much better deployed chauffeuring Darren’s three-year old and all the gear which goes with child rearing (I hear there’s quite a lot).

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So, back to my new Volvo. The EX30 was actually crowned Carwow’s Car Of The Year back in 2024 thanks to its sleek Scandinavian styling, affordable price tag and funky interior. The day my new car was dropped off, I was immediately reminded just how cool it looks.

This car is finished in Onyx Black. We picked this colour because most EX30s you see are light blue or bright yellow – the black seemed like something a bit different, and I do quite like it. It gives the EX30 a Storm Trooper vibe, however I do think it suits lighter colours slightly better – they show off the more intricate details of this design.

The cabin is also quite cool. We’ve gone for the Pine interior, which means you get green seats and door card inserts. The dashboard trim is also a funky-looking woven material – it looks a bit like a jute tote bag.

We’ve sprung for the top-spec Ultra version of the EX30, meaning we get things like a panoramic glass roof, a 360-degree camera, Harman Kardon sound system and Pilot Assist – a more advanced adaptive cruise control system which can steer to keep you in lane.

Powering this car we have two electric motors which make a whopping 430hp. The first time I drove this car I was taken aback by just how fast it is, but it’ll be interesting to see what this performance does to the range.

The EX30 has a 69kWh battery, and this Twin Motor Performance version should be able to do 280 miles on a charge. I’ll be keeping a close eye on the real-world range to see how close it gets.

There are no optional extras fitted to this car. The black paint and green interior are no-cost options, so in total this top-spec EX30 costs £44,860. That makes it slightly more than a range-topping Kia EV3, however that car doesn’t have 430hp.

On first impressions, I think I’ll get on with the EX30 quite well. It did take a couple of days to get my head around the infotainment system – it’s not the most intuitive setup and everything in the car is controlled through it.

Other than that though, it’s comfy to drive, stupidly fast and I love the way it looks. Keep an eye out over the next few months for updates on what this car is like to live with.

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*Prices correct at the time of writing