Third time’s a charm: The Volvo EX60 is a welcome return to normalcy
At the launch of its Volvo EX60, brand CEO Håkan Samuelsson described Gothenburg’s latest EV as a “new beginning” – it’s so much more than that, though.
After Volvo unveiled its smart-looking EX60 at an unsurprisingly cool and understated event in Stockholm, ‘car people’ around the world breathed a collective sigh of relief.
This group-outpouring wasn’t just because the EX60 is the all-electric equivalent of the much-loved XC60, the best-selling Volvo of all time. Oh no. The EX60 represents so much more than that.
To say Volvo’s switch to electrification hasn’t been easy, is putting things mildly. Under the leadership of ex-CEO – and former Dyson executive – Jim Rowan from 2022 to 2025, the brand sought to re-define Volvo for the 21st century.
Understanding what makes Volvo owners such a loyal bunch is key to understanding Volvo’s core principles of safety, innovation, dependability, and a much-welcome lack of bling ‘n gimmicks.
Yet instead of bringing these fundamentals into a new era of electrification, Rowan sought to transform Volvo from a car maker that uses tech to benefit of its customers, to a tech firm that builds cars.
This radical approach works for relatively new automakers like Tesla, BYD, Rivian and Xiaomi. But to radically un-stitch the (sustainably-sourced) fabric of what makes Volvo Volvo? It was a gamble that would never pay off.
And it didn’t. Volvo’s first crack at a ground-up EV, the EX30 crossover, was plagued by early software issues, and a general sense of ‘un-Volvoness’. The follow-up act, the full-sized EX90 – while now massively rectified and improved – fared worse upon debut.
Volvo’s debut Software-Defined Vehicle, or SDV, the EX90 was built around a big-brained Nvidia Drive computer… that didn’t work. As as result, the EX90 was delayed by a year due to a variety of software issues, and Rowan was promptly, and let’s be honest, correctly, shown the door.
To right the course of the Good Ship Gothenburg, Volvo brought back Rowan’s predecessor, Håkan Samuelsson; a man whose decade-long management of the firm from 2012 to 2022 oversaw some of the greatest Geely-era Volvos ever made: think Polestars V60 and S60, and the second-gen Volvo XC60 and XC90.
At his core, Samuelsson gets Volvo. Most crucially of all, he gets what Volvo buyers want. At the EX60 launch, the 74-year-old told the motoring press that the EX60 was “the most important car” for Volvo. He wasn’t wrong. It simply can’t afford another EX90-style debacle, in either PR or financial terms.
It was that same event that saw the EX60’s range figure steal the front pages. In top-tier, all-wheel drive, twin-motor guise, Volvo’s latest can manage 503 miles from its 117kWh battery. This remarkable feat single-handedly cast range anxiety to the history books.
While only three miles more than one of its main competitors, the recently-released BMW iX3, this headline figure makes the EX60 the world’s longest range EV (by WLTP measures). It’s also significantly more than the 406 miles that similarly-sized Mercedes GLC can achieve on a single charge.
Perhaps most symbolically, it was a clear warning shot that Gothenburg had very much learned from the EX30 and EX90, and awoken from its innovative slumber.
Volvo may have lay dormant for the last few years, but don’t forget that this is the car manufacturer that, amongst several other significant automotive firsts, pioneered the three-point seatbelt, crumple zones, the three-way catalytic converter, the rear-facing child seat, and side airbags.
There’s nothing yet to suggest that the EX60 will capture the very essence that makes a Volvo a Volvo, but it exudes a quiet confidence suggesting that all of the key components are in place.
Oh, and one last thing. Unlike the EX30 and the EX90, the EX60 will be built at Volvo’s Torslanda factory in Sweden, which has been building its cars since 1967.
Perhaps a return home and a return to normalcy were what Volvo’s EV programme needed all along.
