I just attended my very first media event, and it involved Volvo flying me to Sweden, taking my dogsledding, and then letting me drive the new EX30 EV on ice. My impressions?: Back in November, Jamie Kitman wrote that you should order the new Volvo EX30 immediately, before even reading his review. I’m here to tell you that he was absolutely right.
Full disclosure: Volvo flew me to Sweden, put me up in some swanky and cool hotels and served me some of the best food I’ve had in a long time, hoping I would write nice things about their new $35,000 small electric SUV, the EX30. But I’m not one to be bought. No sir. I’m not going to say nice things unless they’re deserved, and this car deserves it.
[Ed Note: This is Huibert’s first-ever car review, though he’s extremely experienced with evaluating vehicles, as he was a dynamics engineer for decades, leading the design of the suspensions for legendary vehicles like the Tesla Model S, Ford GT, and Lincoln LS. -DT].
After driving the EX30 in both rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive guise through the frozen tundra of the Swedish north, on public roads and a frozen lake, I came away impressed by how well the car performed. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it did many things very well. While I was impressed by what the car could do, I was equally impressed by what the car wasn’t trying to do.
The EV space is filled with family sedans that can go 0-60 in 3 seconds or less. I’ll be the first to admit that performance like that has a strong appeal, but do we need it? No. In fact, I would argue that it’s borderline irresponsible to put such a missile into the hands of a public that, considering the state of driver education in this country, is ill equipped to handle it.
The problem is that equipping an EV with that level of performance carries few penalties. Unlike IC engines, where increasing power is accompanied by decreasing fuel efficiency due to internal friction and pumping losses, high torque electric motors aren’t really less efficient at low speeds (in some cases, larger motors are actually MORE efficient). All you really need to do is put in a bigger motor and use batteries and control circuitry that can handle higher currents. There’s a cost penalty for this but not an efficiency loss when you’re tootling around town and not using the extra capability.
Volvo decided to take a more pragmatic approach in this regard. The EX30 makes no pretenses of being a sports car. The rear-wheel drive version goes 0-60 in 5.1 seconds while the all-wheel drive version can do it in 3.4 seconds. Not slow by any means but neither is going to set your heart aflutter when you can find any number of EV’s these days that will do it in much less time. Personally, I’m OK with that.
I’ve driven a Model S Plaid, and the acceleration of that car makes my brain hurt. Literally. It’s actually uncomfortable, and once you’ve gotten past the party trick that it is, you start to avoid it. It becomes wasted potential beyond bragging rights.
The EX30 is a perfect example of a car company deciding it doesn’t need to go down that road. The performance is more than adequate. I can’t believe I’m saying that considering it wasn’t that long ago that a 5 second 0-60 time was considered world leading.
Ride is another area where Volvo clearly understood what the EX30 was and also wasn’t. It’s a family vehicle that needs to be comfortable. And it most certainly is. The ride is compliant and quiet but still well controlled. Only when the road gets rougher with bigger undulations does the car feel under damped. Then you see the compromises Volvo made for comfort. The car does a “double tap” coming down off the bigger road yumps where the suspension, especially the rear, undulates twice before settling down again. It’s not uncomfortable by any means, but it does make you slow down a bit. And that’s ok. Again, this is not a sports car and doesn’t pretend to be. This is not the car to take down the Tail of the Dragon along with your buddies in their WRX’s.
Road noise is another area that impressed me. So much so that my driving partner and I both noted that while the cars were all fitted with studded tires (Michelin P245/40R20 X-Ice North 4), even on dry pavement, there was no road roar intruding on our conversation. I had expected much worse.
On the Ice
The drive Volvo had planned, took us from Luleå, Sweden to Harad along back roads and highways. Harad is about 1 1/2 hours north of Luleå and 31 miles south of the Arctic Circle. It’s up there! During winter, everything in this part of the world is frozen, even the ocean. Every lake and every river has at least 1-2 feet of ice on it. Good snow and ice driving capability is paramount in conditions like this.
Once we reached Harad, we parked on the edge of a huge lake where Volvo had setup two test tracks on the ice. One consisted of two back and forth slaloms while the other was a 3.7 km handling course with 75 corners:
We were provided with several new cars evenly divided between rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive versions, and after a brief orientation and a lead/follow drive through the tracks, they let us loose to fend for ourselves. All they asked was that we keep it on the ice.
Driving on the handling course, it became immediately clear that these cars are very good. The stability control did a remarkable job keeping the car going where we pointed it, and I was impressed by how fast we were able to go. The system wasn’t overly intrusive, but it did take the fun out of the drive. Of course, not even a capable stability control system can save you from doing something stupid, but as long as we weren’t trying to go too fast, the system worked exceptionally well. That was true for both the rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive versions.
There is an option to turn the stability control off and it does make things a lot more fun. But like most ESC systems these days, it never truly turns completely off. There are still some remnants of it left functioning to try to stop you from being a complete idiot. Still, with the system turned off, both the rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive versions could be made to hang the tail out quite easily. The bits that were left functioning did prevent you from powering out of a slide, though. Mash the throttle during a full lock sideways slide and the system just shuts the motors down. You’re left to wait until the car recovers or spins out completely so you can start over. For most drivers, that’s perfectly OK.
Efficiency
Volvo claims that the EX30 RWD will use 26.5 kWh per 100 miles. This equates to 3.77 miles per kWh, which, while not the best is still very respectable. The best EV’s these days get over 4 miles per kWh. Considering the car has a 64 kWh (usable) battery, that would give a range of 241 miles for the RWD version. Not bad, but not great either. During our public road drive which lasted nearly 1 1/2 hours, we saw a usage of about 17.7 kWh per 100 km which equates to 3.5 miles per kWh. Not too bad considering we were driving at 0 deg C and on studded winter tires.
The Nuts and Bolts Of It
So, what’s the hardware that makes all this performance possible? The EX30 is built on the new SEA (Sustainable Experience Architecture) platform developed by Chinese OEM Geely. It is used in the new Zeekr X and Smart #1, and looking at those vehicles you can certainly see the similarities.
Image via: ZEEKR X | ZEEKR
Image via: Explore the spacious smart #1 | smart UK
Zeekr, Smart, and Volvo are owned by Geely and Volvo provided significant input during the design of the platform to ensure it would meet their needs.
The front suspension is a standard MacPherson strut while the rear uses a five-link design. Unfortunately, there was no chance to put any of the cars up on a hoist to have a better look underneath so I can’t give you much more detail than that. Images available online are poor and don’t help much and Volvo wasn’t able or willing to provide any better information. What I do know is that the Zeekr X rides on a 2750 mm wheelbase while in the EX30 it was reduced to 2650 mm. That 100 mm (4 inches) smaller wheelbase was chosen to give the car a more agile feeling and make it easier to maneuver in cities.
Image via: ZEEKR X | ZEEKR
The image above shows the Zeekr X chassis and from it we can draw a few conclusions. You can see the front strut suspension which looks very standard. In the rear, we can see four of the five links:
The lack of a visible spring suggests it sits directly on the rear lower link that we can’t see. Also fairly standard. The whole rear suspension is mounted on a rubber isolated subframe which also holds the rear motor and inverter.
Braking is accomplished via four-wheel disc brakes and while the Zeekr looks like it uses four-piston fixed front calipers (at least in the top line version), the EX30 uses floating calipers. Brake actuation is done via a Bosch Integrated Power Brake Booster which combines the booster, master cylinder and ABS hydraulic controller into a single unit.
Image via: Integrated power brake (bosch-mobility.com)
This is a fairly new product from Bosch and allows significantly more flexibility in blending regen with normal hydraulic braking. This is done by disconnecting the pedal from the hydraulics completely. When you push on the pedal, you actually are pushing against a “pedal simulator,” which consists of springs and rubber pieces that are tuned to make it feel as if you are pushing on a normal brake system. A sensor measures how far you press the pedal and tells a computer how much deceleration you are requesting. The computer then decides if it can provide the necessary braking force through regen or a combination of regen and hydraulics. This “blending” of regen and hydraulics is completely transparent to the driver and can be done in a way that optimizes the efficiency of the vehicle.
In practice, it works very well. The brake pedal feels natural even though you have no idea what is actually happening under the car. All you know is that the car is slowing down as you would expect.
Since the booster integrates the ABS hydraulic control module, it is responsible for the stability control as well. This is the system that gave the exceptional ice driving performance I talked about earlier.
Steering is also provided by Bosch and has good feel. There was a little more friction on center than I would have liked but it really wasn’t bad. I’m particularly sensitive to it so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt. Most drivers likely wouldn’t notice and would be very happy with the system. Like most electric power steering systems these days, there are multiple settings you could choose from: Light, Normal, and Firm. In the light setting, the steering was a bit video-game-ish while the firm setting felt good and provided adequate feedback. Again, it’s not a sports car, so the steering stayed on the light side of what some drivers might want.
A Few Nitpicks
I do have a few nitpicks with the car though. The interior is very minimalist and although I don’t mind that, I think Volvo took things a little too far.
I’m not a fan of the everything-through-the-touch-screen school of interior design. I like some buttons, especially for cruise control. In order to change the following distance of the adaptive cruise control, for instance, you have to go down three menu levels. Plus, you have to take your eyes off the road to do it. For someone who changes this parameter often as I’m driving on the highway, this is a major concern.
As you can see from the image above, there is no display in front of the driver. Everything is on the center mounted screen. This means you have to look down and to the right to see how fast you’re going. I much prefer to just look down slightly. A heads-up display would be great here and is available in both the Zeekr X and the Smart #1 even though these cars also have a more traditional display in front of the driver.
There IS what looks like a small display right above the steering column,
but that’s actually the part of the car that’s watching YOU. Like many other cars these days, a camera tracks your eye movements and makes sure you’re paying attention to the road. If you take your eyes off the road too long, the car reminds you to pay attention or take a break.
Regen Could Be Stronger
Like all EV’s, the EX30 uses regeneration to partially recharge the battery when you slow down. This is done by temporarily turning the motor into a generator and using it to convert the energy of motion into electricity and in the process slow the vehicle down. In practice, it feels like really heavy engine braking like you might get in a manual transmission car when lift off the accelerator in a low gear. The EX30, like many other EV’s, gives you a choice of using either the throttle or the brake pedal to do this. Choosing “One Pedal Driving” via the vehicle settings screen, means most of the regen happens when you lift off the throttle, and while that works well, I would prefer it to be stronger. It felt like the system applied a max of about 0.1g deceleration on lift-off which is too low for my taste. As a comparison, Tesla applies about 0.15g while BMW gave about 0.2g in the I3. Higher deceleration levels on lift-off can make driving more jerky if you lift off too quickly but once you’re used to it, it makes driving without using the brake pedal much easier.
Wiper Controls
Another issue I have is a small one but still bothers me. The windshield wiper control is a wheel at the end of the turn signal stalk. You spin it to turn the wipers on and off and choose between interval, slow and fast settings. What bothers me is that the wheel keeps spinning. It has no stops to denote the ends of travel. As such, there are no markings on the stalk itself and you can’t figure out what setting you are in by feel. The only indication is some text on the center display that is small and difficult to see. Again, you have to take your eyes off the road.
Image via: Volvo Cars
The outside mirror adjustment needs some more thought as well. To adjust the mirrors, you have to go 2 menu levels down on the screen, choose which mirror you want to adjust, and then press on the right steering wheel controls:
That whole panel tilts up/down and left/right to move the mirrors but you have to press on it in the right places. It is tempting to just press on the edges and while the panel will still tilt, the mirrors won’t move. You have to press on one of the icons that are there, but the icons have nothing to do with adjusting the mirrors. It’s all very confusing.
Lastly, Volvo has fallen victim to the same window switch disease that infected VW, namely, using 2 switches to control 4 windows.
Image via: Volvo Cars
The switches are located on the center console and normally operate the front windows. To open and close the rear windows, you first have to touch the “REAR” switch. I know it saves real estate on the console and also costs less, but it’s annoying.
All in all, none of these issues are big enough that they would stop me from buying the car if I was in the market for one. The EX30 is a remarkably good car and definitely worth your consideration once it comes on sale here in the U.S. later this year.
How much of a premium do I have to pay to get a switch for each mother-freakin’ window? I honestly cannot comprehend how that cost saving decision was justified, it’s got to be one of the dumbest ways to convince someone not to buy a car.
It’s absolutely horrendous, reviewers need to denigrate this “feature” until it stays dead.
In Soviet China, screen watches you.
> The rear-wheel drive version goes 0-60 in 5.1 seconds while the all-wheel drive version can do it in 3.4 seconds. Not slow by any means but neither is going to set your heart aflutter when you can find any number of EV’s these days that will do it in much less time. Personally, I’m OK with that.
Uh what
5.1 seconds to 60 was extremely quick a handful of years ago and still is. And 3.4 seconds is supercar territory.
If 3.4 doesn’t set your heart aflutter then you’re probably dead.
Ditto. Even in modern traffic, I think anything that can do 0-60 in 9 seconds or less is perfectly acceptable. Anything faster is just for fun.
I have a Yaris with center binnacle.You very quickly get used to it.Looking sideways instead of down takes (almost) the same time.
OTOH i’m completely with you regarding adaptive cruise,and other niggles.
And while i’m here i want to admit i cant wait to get a car with driver inattention warning.Having ADHD i’m either concentrating better than other drivers or barely at all.And as speed limits decrease in our country i find it harder to be involved.Already i’ve had lots of minor near misses!
Genuine question for all the folks saying they’d never drive a car with a brake-by-wire system: do you also avoid flying commercial aircraft with fly-by-wire control systems, which is most modern commercial aircraft (all new Airbus aircraft + the B777, B787, and certain elements of the B737Max)?
Also, while I agree this cabin spartan and the user interfaces are a non-starter for me, I said those exact same things about the Tesla 3 & Y, and Tesla had had no problem slinging hundreds of thousands of those both stateside and internationally. Volvo will find plenty of folks willing to pony up for the same basic vehicle but with a Volvo badge (and perceived Volvo safety).
Genuine question in reply: Don’t car brakes work even in the event of a complete electronics failure?
That’s not a genuine reply to the question, but thanks anyway.
Do you fly on modern commercial aircraft? If so, you are trusting your life to myriad electronic “X-by-wire” systems in an environment that is dramatically less forgiving than the interstate.
I also find the concept of brake-by-wire a bit disconcerting, but it is by no means unprecedented or inherently unsafe.
I think that is a genuine reply. The failure modes of a X-by-wire system are what determine its safety.
They should but you’re gonna have to stomp on them much harder.
Maybe, but volvo around me, is for rich people who don’t feel comfortable in a merc or bmw badge. Their style is great and makes it an easy buy. That said, they are SIGNIFICANTLY nicer than whatever the fuck this car is. Maybe you scoop up some 20 year old girls out of college with this, but I dunno who else it’s for. Basically an electric Nissan Roque with complicated use and a charger needed for people who live in an apartment.
“Maybe you scoop up some 20 year old girls out of college with this, but I dunno who else it’s for.”
God enough for me!
“Genuine question for all the folks saying they’d never drive a car with a brake-by-wire system: do you also avoid flying commercial aircraft with fly-by-wire control systems, which is most modern commercial aircraft (all new Airbus aircraft + the B777, B787, and certain elements of the B737Max)?”
I fly maybe once every 3-4 years vs. either using my car or being a cyclist next to cars a few times a day so my chances of being killed by airplane failure are a LOT lower.
Pretty sure that unless you are part of a flight crew the same is true for you too.
Controller hardware in a commercial aircraft is truly redundant. The same data is processed by 3 separate microcontrollers. If all 3 do not return the same answer, the majority win and the odd-man-out controller is flagged as suspect. If all 3 return different answers, there is another failover mode that I don’t recall to try and resolve the discrepancy.
If cars are well designed I’m fine with brake-by-wire, steer-by-wire, etc. Some of them (side-eye at Tesla) are not designed with true redundancy. Hopefully that does not turn out to be problematic.
Dear automakers,
When searching for my next car, I will buy it with a center mounted (above the steering wheel) instrument cluster and any controls buried two clicks deep or more will go a long way towards me *not* buying that car.
That center mounted iPad shit is dangerous and stupid. Also, I am not an elderly buyer; I’m right in the middle, I just turned 40.
Happy birthday!
I am under 40 and won’t sit in any car that has one of those.
Here I am again commenting that another “affordable electric car” is not worth its $7000+ premium over the Bolt EV/EUV. With Volvo I never expected it would complete with the Bolt and I should be pleasantly surprised, but I’m not. Time to just start shopping Bolts.
I’ve driven Bolts regularly – we have some of them in our fleet at work – and I’m struck by how good of a car they are, especially for the city environment I drive them in. It seemed a classic GM move to discontinue something as soon as they got it right, but since it’s based on old-generation architecture they’ll redeem themselves with an Ultium-based replacement if it really happens.
The Bolt was/is a very good car and I’m looking forward to its replacement.
What’s all the fuss about brake-by-wire? My 1980 KV Mini 1 relies entirely on such a system, by which I mean there’s a wire running to a lever at each wheel for actuating the brakes:
https://live.staticflickr.com/5092/5442740495_4911aae58b_c.jpg
I understand the single screen is for cost-cutting reasons, but this seems like the perfect opportunity to offer a HUD option for $500. Is it available? That would make the interior much more palatable to me though the lack of physical knobs is still a bit of a PITA.
Geely. Listen. I would pay an extra $3k for a tech package that contains a HUD.
I stopped reading this review entirely as soon as you mentioned brake-by-wire. I was intrigued by this car, but now there is no way I would ever consider one, nothing could possibly be worth the danger of losing brakes due to an electrical gremlin.
One of the few bits of consolation you have as a driver if your car has a problem and shuts off is that you can still coast to the side of the road and slow down. Steer-by-wire is bad enough and already makes that difficult, but freaking BRAKES? You’ve gotta be kidding me, that’s moronic design. The thought of the car shutting off at highway speed and being utterly helpless to change its direction or velocity with controls that don’t respond is utterly terrifying.
This car and anything else stupid enough to use these systems should be banned and I’m not kidding. I don’t even feel safe sharing the road with them.
Counterpoint: I’ve had brakes fail more often than an electrical failure.
I don’t know which is actually more common, but at least in an EV, total electrical failure immediately applies braking force due to back-EMF in the motors.
Don’t worry, these systems have a failsafe built in. They have to, by law. In the event of an electrical failure, a valve opens up and connects the pedal directly to the hydraulics. The pedal is only isolated from the hydraulics when everything is working properly. Similar systems have been on the market for years.
I was wondering about the possible fail safe system when reading the article (and seems like I’m not the only one). This would have been good to mention in the article itself, even though it’s not a unique feature to this car.
That’s good to know. Still a part of me wants to question how the safety valve works and whether it’s safe enough, but at least there’s a plan in case the car bricks itself at speed.
As a trucker, I’m gonna tell you that hydraulic brakes are just as crappy, maybe even worse. Personally, air brakes are best. Still work while leaking, and in event of complete failure, the air brakes lock on, as long as the drums aren’t overheated. Hydraulics leak, and then you have to hope the e brake works. Drive by wire would be easy to set up with a failsafe.
Can we get a stand alone article about brake by wire systems? Those words in that order scare me. I once had a complete loss of all electrical systems (in a jalopy) while driving on the interstate, I do not recommend the experience.
You think that’s bad? Let me tell you about this container ship that lost power…
Too soon…
Soon enough I’d say, it’s harrowing but a perfect extreme example of why this crap is dangerous and irresponsible to be including on a passenger car.
I hit zero bridges. And didn’t even need my brakes thanks to a hill. Although my brakes did allow me to avoid rolling backwards down the exit ramp back onto the interstate…
I lost all electrical power in a 04 Mazda 3 while on a 100ft long merge ramp, the only reason I’m alive is because all the mechanical bits worked, like steering and braking.
I’ve had brake master cylinders fail twice. One garden variety failure but on a single circuit system. Fortunately that was as I was driving the car into a junkyard. Another was when the booster diaphragm on a Mercedes 240d failed and all the brake fluid got sucked into the engine waiting at a stop light. Fortunately the car wasn’t moving but it was rather spectacular in terms of smoke. Actually I’ve had master cylinders fail two other times but that was when reviving long parked cars. So that’s four brake failures. Oh there was that time the exhaust pipe rusted out and set the brake hose on fire but somehow that seems like it belongs in a separate category, like times my car caught fire. Oh and my Volvo 740 wagon’s ABS started engaging for no reason which made braking an unpredictable affair. So that’s five brake failures? That time the CV joint seized and tore the front hub off my VW Dasher was technically a brake failure I guess, but the scenery intervened and I didn’t try using the brakes.
My driving philosophy has been that brakes are nice to have but a plan B is a good idea.
Anyway brake by wire doesn’t sound so bad.
A vibrant automotive life is seldom a comfortable automotive life.
Writing this review made me realize this topic deserves its own post. So yes, i will cover it the near future.
Thanks! Looking forward to it.
Remember “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey” says Ralph Waldo Emerson ( I think he may have been looking at the Buddha’s homework though.) So obviously a reliable car is antithetical to really paying attention to said journey. That’s what Ralph was getting at right?
Also, the rearview mirror is for checking to see if your car is on fire!
Wanted to like this car but the interior compromises are too much to overlook. 4 windows to control? there better be 4 switches or I’m not interested
I literally said “Fuck no!” out loud when i read how to adjust the mirrors.
This car exhibits many ‘red line’ issues for me that 100% ensures I wouldn’t buy it for any price. The single biggest one is the brake by wire system. I refuse, and it should be illegal to have a braking system with no pure mechanical (I lump hydraulic into this bucket) backup that will work independent of the power state of the vehicle.
Second is ‘made in China’. Independent of judgements about quality or lack thereof, I refuse to support that regime with a large chunk of the second biggest purchase any individual normally makes.
I’m going to lump all the rest of them into a giant slop-bucket that I’ll name ‘human-machine interface disaster’ and just leave it at that. No front and center gauges, all touch screens or capacitive touch controls or knobs with no end stops and thus no tactile feedback whatever, stupid electronic controls for things you should just do mechanically and/or with your hands… though I don’t think you mentioned it in your article I’m going to assume based on the lack of a visible handle on the glove box that you need to use the touch screen to open that, too. FFS…
Same here, stopped reading the article when it mentioned brake by wire, as every other detail of the vehicle is rendered irrelevant because of it.
I don’t care how well it drives or how cheap it is or even where it’s produced, none of that matters until it’s capable of braking and steering when the power goes out. THEN we can discuss manufacturing ethics, driving dynamics, and practicality.
I daily drove a 1966 Thunderbird with single circuit brakes for years and felt perfectly safe, but THIS? This scares the crap out of me.
> I daily drove a 1966 Thunderbird with single circuit brakes for years and felt perfectly safe, but THIS? This scares the crap out of me.
Surely you realize that’s an absurdly irrational take? Any crash in the t-bird would have turned you into bird stuffing.
I’ve been in a crash in the T-bird and ghosts can’t type! But yeah, by safe I just mean I trust the brakes to do their thing (I kept them well maintained), but even then I really do need to swap that master cylinder to convert it to dual-circuit brakes for the most safety.
My ideas of safety are mostly concerned with not crashing in the first place.
My Corvette theoretically (in the hands of someone more skilled than me) does 0-60 in 4.5 seconds, and that’s enough to get my heart pumping hard enough to make my smart watch start an automatic workout.
3.53.4 is $%^&ing fast. I don’t care if there are faster cars out there.As another point of comparison, I believe Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at Disney does it in 3 seconds. A thrill ride that’s only half a second faster than an entry level Volvo, and we’re sitting here meh’ing it?
For something you are only going to use while driving? That’s absurd and grounds for a safety recall as far as I’m concerned.
As great as this car might be mechanically, I hope it completely bombs so this interior BS doesn’t take hold more than it already has.
It’s ridiculous that we’re saying 0-60 in 3.4 won’t set your heart aflutter. I get that performance paradigms have changed drastically in the last 10 years because of the instant 100% big torque of EVs but have but physics hasn’t. That’s insane acceleration. Sure, big power is fun, but I’ve driven plenty of supremely enjoayble cars that take over 8 seconds to hit 60.
I am fine with a minimulist interior, but that is just bad. I love the color, but I can’t live with that ipad and nothing else. Just nope.
0-60 in 5.1 is slow? Christ, I’ve driven actual race cars slower than that, and 3.4 is ho-hum? I feel 6 seconds is sufficient for anything for a street.
10 seconds is totally sufficient for anything on the street. 5 seconds is sports car fast and rarely usable in street driving without dipping a toe over the ‘reckless driving’ line.
11 seconds is totally sufficient for anything on the street – that’s how fast my old T-bird was, and it never had a problem getting up to highway speeds. Nissan Versas do 0-60 in 12 seconds, or did for a long time, and those were fine also. We need a lot less acceleration than we think we do.
To me anything under 7 seconds is really for the fun of it. I prefer to have a 7-8 seconds to 60 car to merge into traffic or get away from dangerous drivers, but that’s plenty quick and I almost never use it.
5 seconds is way too fast. 3.4 seconds is irresponsible and shouldn’t be available in a boring family car.
I wanted to like it… I really did. But there is no way I can do that in a car that took all dem buttonz away from me.
Man those UI aspects make this a complete non-starter for me. I might be able to live with one or another of them, but all together? Hard pass.
I’m honestly a little skeptical that anyone will sell in the US an EV I actually want. Between the size of them and the unnecessary tech (I don’t want to be surveilled by my car, tyvm) and the ridiculous interface choices, my shopping list at the moment is nothing.
Completely same, Jason. Every feature that has become commonplace in new cars over the last 5 years have all been things I actively don’t want.
I’m not going to say that its a total salve to the issue you face, but my favorite ev on the market right now is technically a UTV. The Vanderhall Brawley. In its top GTS form, its a fully sealed cabin with AC/Heat, seats for 4, 400hp, a decent battery life, freaking gauges and a PANEL OF TOGGLE SWITCHES. No tablet to be seen, though I think the gauges themselves might be digital. It comes on 35s, but maybe run some 33s, add some mud flaps and a street kit, and you now have what I consider to be the most desirable daily driver EV on the market.
Nice looking, plenty good performance, and an incredibly tech and smart free example of an EV.
That’s pretty wild. There’s a dealer not too far away, maybe I need to take a ride out there some time.
Whoa, want.
“Sweet! This looks amazing and should be perfect for a commute! *sees interior interface* Oh..maybe not. I have no time for menu diving and continued enshitification of car interfaces. Good day.”
Yeah, and Volvo logic in that regard is super UNintuitive, in my experience.
THAT’S what breaks the deal for you and not the brake-by-wire crap?
Governments mandate a physical fail safe, you need to read up on that.
HATE the interior. Stupid iPad center console just makes it worse.
The low regen and crappy UI are a nope from me, and I am simply never going to be interested in the crossover form factor, but…is that a pale blue interior?? ‘Cause if so, I’m gonna need that to show up in something that I actually want, stat.
great article. nice to hear about the efficiency and snow/ice handling especially with proper snow tires (but I’m not a fan of studs). Did they ever allude to the Cross Country version?
I can’t wait for my number to come up in the reservation list.
Why do manufacturers keep installing systems to prevent me from being a complete idiot? I’m nearly there, but if they keep blocking me I’ll never make it.
By the by, excellent review.
I’m pretty sure those are programmable.
3.4s to 60 is absurd. My tuned S5 is right around there. It may be becoming the norm, but it’s still crazy fast and before you know it you’re doubling the speed limit. And it’s not just about the speed limit, other drivers don’t expect that rate of acceleration out of an appliance! Think about it, you’re first in line at a red light thinking “I’m gonna give it the beans when this light turns green” and some jabroni in his Ram or Tahoe or Corolla says “Their light just turned, I can make my right before this traffic gets going and cut off this whole line of traffic”. Buddy isn’t expecting your white Volvo to accelerate like a damn Lamborghini and before either one of you know it both of your cars are a twisted mess of batteries and gasoline. This is a regular ass commuter car for crying out loud. Even a 5.1 0-60 is spicy for what this car is intended for. Like, imagine if Honda sold a CRV that could do 0-60 in 3 seconds. It’s absurd to think about, but when it’s an electric car you’re kinda like “yeah that’s about normal”.
Apparently that 3.4 is faster than the F10 M5 from 2010 which was only 3.7. Bonkers, just absolutely bonkers.
Do the seats and mirrors have memory settings? If so, this is IMO a nothing burger. Ideally, I adjust the mirrors and seats once when I leave the dealership or rental counter and then never again for as long as I own the car. My wife does the same, so it’s not like I need to adjust after she’s been driving or vice versa. No one would ever tow a trailer with this vehicle, so adjusting for that isn’t a concern either. This is exactly the kind of setting that shouldn’t take up a physical button.
My main thought reading that was the location of the adjustment controls; why would you put that on the steering wheel. Those controls are supposed to be for common/quick access controls while driving. These should be in the center console or, dare I say it, in the menu of the center screen as something that won’t be accessed often.
I guess you could make an argument that it should definitely be more accessible than in the screen since anyone driving the car should be able to make adjustments but definitely not on the wheel.
The way I read it, those controls are general purpose directional arrows used to navigate many menus and settings, not just mirror controls. They only move the mirrors once you select that function on the screen. My van has something like this in the same place.
If I’m wrong and it’s the way you describe it, then it’s one of the worst design decisions ever made.
Yeah, in re-reading it it does look like you go into the center screen menu to get to the mirror controls and then use these arrows. So not mono–purpose at least. But I find the whole setup confusing since those arrows on the panel would visually seem to suggest tapping/pressing those for direction. But Herbert seems to describe it like you hit the corners of the pad and ignore those arrows.
Like you say, you wouldn’t have to do it often, but the overall lack of clarity should make for some folks that are just casually jumping into a car with need of making adjustments unable to really make the adjustments. Who is going to break out the manual to adjust the mirrors for the valet or tire service guy/gal?