2025 Volvo EX30 review: Fast yet infuriating

Mitchell Weitzman
2 days ago
6 min read

This electric crossover is ballistically fast and reasonably priced, but that's it

2025 Volvo EX30 review by The Road Beat

Words and pictures: Mitchell Weitzman

Well, that wasn’t on my bingo card for 2025 — but then again, neither was cervical disc replacement. For some, especially the unsuspecting, the sheer speed of the Volvo EX30 may be enough to cause potential disc issues of their own. Insurance companies likely won’t love the rapid spread of hypercar‑quick, mainstream electric vehicles — but at least the neurosurgeons will.

2025 Volvo EX30 interior and review | The Road Beat

Pros

How fast exactly is the all-electric Volvo EX30? This Twin Motor Performance Ultra edition emits 422-humming horsepower. That might not sound outrageous on paper, but it’s just 22 horses shy of the legendary Porsche 959 — except this power now lives in a commuter‑spec Volvo crossover. Unlike the multi‑million‑dollar icon, the EX30 would leave it in its metaphorical, mummifying dust.

Zero to 60 mph takes a scarcely believable 3.3 seconds. Zero to 100 mph is dispatched in under nine seconds, and the quarter mile flies by in under 12. If you’re running late getting your kids to school in the early hours, the EX30 might make it genuinely difficult to ever be late again. Except for speed cameras that is.

So yes, it’s an everyday ballistic missile — a short‑range one, admittedly, which we'll get to soon — but also seriously challenges what’s acceptable on public roads. Those shocking performance figures don’t fully illustrate just how disruptive this car is to the sub‑$50,000 EV landscape. A Toyota bZ4X? Hopeless. An entry‑level Hyundai Ioniq 5? No chance. That's well before considering the average Honda CR-V.

Based on initial impressions alone when it came to the shocking speed it taps into, I was convinced this Volvo had to cost north of $70,000. Instead, I was genuinely stunned to see this well‑equipped example sticker just under $50,000, landing at $48,395 as-tested.

Despite that punch, efficiency is commendable, hovering a touch above three miles per kWh in mixed driving. That puts it right inline with most other AWD electric crossovers like the Ioniq 5 albeit with gobs more power. Range isn’t headline‑grabbing due to the relatively compact ~69 kWh battery pack, but it will still just clear the 200‑mile mark. And with fast DC charging peaking around 150 kW, the smaller battery means you spend less of your life tethered to a cord.

A compact size may be a downside for some, but I appreciate the diminutive footprint. Thanks to smart EV packaging, the interior feels roomier than the stubby 167‑inch overall length would suggest. Parking and maneuvering are effortless, and the EX30 simply feels less wasteful on crowded roads.

2025 Volvo EX30 exterior rear three quarter

The sparse interior will appeal to fans of minimalist Scandinavian and Bauhaus‑inspired design, too. Rather than by mistake, it’s intentionally barren, and while that won’t be to everyone’s taste, there are highlights — chief among them the interior door handles, which might be the best‑looking and best‑feeling I’ve ever used. Tesla introduced the vacant interior design language for modern cars, and Volvo's designers have at least made it feel more welcoming and attractive.

Cons

As fast as the EX30 is and at such a relatively attainable price, such vast pace is entirely unnecessary in the real world. It also feels less like a meaningful benefit and more like a one-trick marketing tool — one that distracts from the EX30’s fundamental shortcomings as a vehicle to drive and live with. And in classic modern Volvo fashion, it all boils down to deeply frustrating electronics and controls.

One could safely assume a clueless Volvo committee decided the best way to build an EV interface was simply to copy Tesla. But in a stroke of questionable creativity — perhaps to differentiate themselves — they instead made a version that’s worse in nearly every conceivable way.

By fully committing to Bauhaus minimalism, physical controls have been almost entirely eliminated and relocated to the central tablet. Want to adjust your mirrors? Don’t bother looking at the door. Instead, dive at least two menus deep into the touchscreen — only to then have to actually adjust the mirrors using unlabeled steering‑wheel buttons. Intuitive, right? Totally not distracting at all, literally feeling like a Tim Robinson skit.

Despite the vast, unused dashboard space in front of the passenger seat, there’s only a microscopic glovebox . And yes, opening it also requires multiple taps on the central touchscreen. A cleverly hidden button would be so much better, and just wait until that electric connection and motor to open the glovebox fails.

Turn signals and wipers are awkwardly combined into a single left‑hand stalk behind the steering wheel. Turning the wipers on is simple enough, but adjusting their speed during rain requires — you guessed it — several touchscreen interactions. Left hand for activation, right hand for menu diving. Brilliant again!

Somehow there's also not a single, central page for climate functions, thus requiring separate pages and clicks of the screen to access the fan speed and then a different click and page to be able to adjust the temperature. I'm sorry, but who the actual f*ck thought of any of this?

Not done yet, between the front seats sits some underfloor storage covered by clunky, awkward flaps finished in a truly hideous radioactive yellow. Above that are centrally mounted window switches that lack dedicated rear controls — meaning you must manually toggle between front and rear every single time. The center console itself is mostly an armrest, offering little in the way of meaningful storage.

You can at least extend part of the console to reveal hidden cupholders, also drenched in that bile‑yellow accent, but even those are ungainly to deploy and stow. Add in a strange rubberized dash material that eagerly collects dust, and the cabin experience starts to wear thin very, very quickly. At least the door handles remain excellent — small mercies.

Volvo also incorporated a driver‑monitoring camera. In turn, it chimes whenever it thinks you’re distracted — which is frequently, because you’re forced to look at the touchscreen to perform nearly every basic task to operate the vehicle. Oh, irony is rich!

I earlier praised the MPG-equivalent of efficiency, but with the small battery in this Volvo, range is compromised and will be considered unacceptable to many drivers. On long-distance freeway driving, which hurts EV ranges the most, you can expect below 200 miles even which is a real usability handicap. Further, this Volvo relies on slower and older150 KW tech for fast charging. In the real world, a faster charging Hyundai can fill up its larger battery in the same time as the Volvo; That's a real problem. Other brands also have adopted native Tesla charging ports to use Tesla Superchargers — easily the most available and most reliable in the world — without any funky and ungainly adapter. For a tech-forward car, it fails quite abundantly in the very tech that defines living with an electric car.

Solutions to problems that did not exist

Volvo is trying far too hard to solve problems that never existed in the first place. In doing so, it has created an entire suite of new annoyances that are only worse. Good news is here: The price is competitive and the speed is astonishing. But, and this is fatal but, the EX30 isn’t actually engaging or interesting to drive, and its user interface represents a genuine regression in how humans interact with cars. A plague has infected so much of modern tech in cars, because it's obvious now that designers ask, "How do we make this more interesting?" instead of, "How do we make this better." Interesting here has ruined the user experience.

Past Volvos I’ve tested have indeed suffered from tech gremlins — frozen screens with laggy responses, door lock issues, and general digital misbehavior. Now imagine that happening here, where nearly everything depends on the screen functioning properly.

Volvo is absolutely on the right path when it comes to blending efficiency and outrageous performance at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, it’s heading in the completely wrong direction when it comes to user interface design and driver interaction — and that matters far more than a 3.3‑second sprint to 60 ever will.