Volvo EX60 Review & Prices

The Volvo EX60 is an all-new electric SUV from the Swedish brand famed for its practical family estate cars. It’s a low-slung, stylish car which just about splits the difference between a big, tall 4x4 and a proper estate. Maybe it’s a new type of SUV — a Surprisingly Un-tall Volvo?

The EX60 is wading into one of the hottest EV sales territories — the mid-size premium electric SUV market. Having been put on a simmer by the likes of the Audi Q6 e-tron and the Porsche Macan, this corner of car sales has been brought to a rapid boil by the BMW iX3 and the Mercedes GLC Electric, both of which offer distinctive styling (a little too distinctive in the big-nosed Mercedes’ case) and long range, with the BMW winning over the Mercedes by offering 500 miles on one charge.

From the outside, the Volvo EX60 definitely scores one big win over its German competition, and that’s in terms of style. The Merc is...not handsome, the BMW slightly over-styled, the Audi a bit plain, and the Porsche a touch too predictable. The EX60, by contrast, looks smooth, understated, and chiselled. In Scandinavian handsomeness terms, it’s like someone put wheels on Mads Mikkelsen. Some of the nicer exterior design touches include the little skeletal door handles (rather like those of the Ford Mustang Mach-E) and frameless door glass, which always classes things up a touch.

The cabin is equally as nice as the exterior. Again, Volvo is paring back, rather than adding-on, so there’s lots of what an architect would call ‘negative space’ (read, simplicity). The surfaces are clean and neat, the big touchscreen is big enough to be impressive, but doesn’t dominate the cabin. The seats look slim and elegant. It’s all very considered, and very welcoming, like you’ve just walked into the best hotel in Stockholm.

Volvo EX60: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 384 - 503 miles
Efficiency: 2.5 miles per kWh
Battery size: 80-112kWh
Max charge speed: 400kW
Charge time AC: 10 - 12hrs 45mins (7.4kW)
Charge time DC: 16min (10-80%)
Charge port location: left rear
Power output: 347 - 680hp

Volvo has partnered with tech giants such as NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Google to work on the EX60’s in-car tech, and hopefully this time around — unlike the EX30 and EX90 — there won’t be any of the recall-triggering software snafus. There’s AI voice assistance which Volvo reckons will make up for the almost total lack of physical buttons. The car’s software is so clever, Volvo’s actually given it a name — HuginCore, named after Hugin, one of Odin’s ravens, which in Norse mythology roamed the land bringing back information for the King of Asgard.

While it might be low, the EX60 is very spacious. There’s plenty of legroom in the back seats, and the 654 litre boot pulls out a genuinely useful advantage over the likes of BMW and Audi, whose circa-500 litre boots suddenly look underfed. There’s another 85 litres of space in the ‘front boot’ in the nose, so this really is a properly practical Volvo estat… er, SUV.

The Volvo has made mincemeat of its alternatives by offering a whole…three miles of extra range compared to the iX3’s 500 miles. Yes, with 503 miles for the big-battery ‘P11 All-Wheel Drive’ model, which is packing 112kWh of battery cells, the EX60 is officially the longest-ranged SUV on sale as we type these words. Expect a Chinese alternative to beat it by one mile by the time we find the full stop on this keyboard.

As well as the big 112kWh battery, there’s a more affordable P6 model which comes with an 83kWh battery and one electric motor for up to 384 mile range. There’s also a mid-spec P10 All-Wheel Drive version with a 91kWh battery and 409 miles of range, and then there’s the range-topping P12, with that 503 mile range, the big 112kWh battery, and two electric motors developing a combined 680hp, giving this family-friendly, safe-as-houses Volvo a 0-62mph time of just 3.9 seconds. Crikey. Almost as fast is the charging, which at a full 400kW takes you from 10-80 per cent power in just 16 minutes.

For those of you who want to seriously off-road, there’s a Cross Country version, which rides 20mm higher thanks to air suspension and which can wade through a foot-and-a-half of standing water. For towing types, the EX60 can handle up to 2,400kg on a braked trailer.

Speaking of safety, it’s a Volvo so there’s some cool safety tech, including a system that can detect the breathing of a sleepy baby in the back seat, so you don’t forget to take your child out of the car. There’s also a new fully active seatbelt, which monitors the weight and size of the occupants and which knows the direction and angle of impact in any crash, pulling you tight into the seat with the appropriate amount of force.

Volvo also subjects the EX60 to some seriously smashy — and deeply impressive — crash tests, way above anything that’s done on the Euro NCAP tests, including firing a test car out the side of the company’s massive safety testing lab, down a muddy, leaf-strewn slope, and straight into a metal pole, simulating a high-speed run-off road crash into a tree.

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The pricing of the EX60 is a bit… odd. At the base level, it’s bang on competitive with the BMW iX3, but then you realise that’s comparing the basic P6, rear-wheel drive, 384 mile EX60 with the four-wheel drive, 469hp, 500 mile iX3. To match that iX3’s performance and range, you need to upgrade to the top-spec P12 model of the Volvo, which overshoots the Beemer in power terms, but matches the range, at a £6,000 price premium. Volvo might be being a bit ambitious here.

Against the new Mercedes GLC EQ, the Volvo’s on firmer ground, being either better on price or better on range, more or less across the board. The same is true of the Porsche Macan Electric, and against the Audi Q6 e-tron, the Volvo is better priced overall, but the Audi has a small edge on range in basic form.