Volvo EX60 BEV breaks cover in Stockholm

VOLVO has unveiled the EX60 fully electric midsize SUV, a vehicle it hopes will eventually supplant its current best-selling XC60 ICE models and one that may take the sales battle to rivals like BMW’s new iX3, the Mercedes-Benz GLC EV, and Tesla’s Model Y.

Not due to arrive until late this year at the earliest, price speculation out of the US suggests it will start at circa $US60,000 extrapolating to about $A90,000. The current XC60 ICE starts at $74,990 here with the PHEV variant from $92,990.

Competitor Tesla’s latest Model Y starts at $58,900, excluding on-road costs.

It is believed Volvo will pitch the EX60 at price parity with the XC60 PHEV and will use a multi-model marketing plan offering it in a number of powertrains across regular five-seat family wagon format and Cross Country variants.

“The new, all-electric EX60 changes the game in terms of range, charging and price and represents a new beginning for Volvo Cars and our customers,” said Volvo Cars chief executive officer Hakan Samuelsson.

“With this car, we remove all remaining obstacles for going electric.

“This fantastic new car is also a testament of what we are capable of at Volvo Cars, with an all-new product architecture introducing new key technologies – mega casting, cell-to-body and core computing.”

With its imminent arrival, the EX60 ushers in a raft of firsts for the Volvo brand.

It is the first Volvo BEV that can travel more than 800km on a single charge and the first that can be charged to offer 340km in just 10 minutes.

It is also the first Volvo to take a DC charge of up to 400kW, and the first to feature Tesla-esque mega-casting in its construction – a process that replaces hundreds of smaller parts with a single aluminium casting, which reduces material usage, time and cuts costs.

Volvo said material utilisation in the EX60 rises to close to 100 per cent, up from 50 per cent, because nearly all the material that comes into the foundry is transformed into cast products. 

Weight in the rear floor of the EX60 decreases 15 to 20 per cent compared with a rear floor that is not created through mega-casting, Volvo said, which helps increase range.

The EX60 is also the first Volvo BEV to use cell-to-body construction, which integrates the battery pack into the vehicle’s body structure. This makes the battery a load-bearing part of the car’s chassis, contributing to overall vehicle stiffness.

Volvo said this process also improves energy density by 20 per cent, reduces weight, and results in a battery that takes up less space. It also charges 31 per cent faster because better integration makes it easier to get electricity to cells.

The EX60 is underpinned by Volvo Car’s third generation scalable SPA3 architecture, making it the first to offer features that include Pilot Assist Plus, which will eventually allow hands-off driving at speed up to 130km/h, intelligent overtaking abilities, Level 2 Plus autonomous driving, and a vast catalogue of driver assistance technologies.

On the infotainment front, the EX60 uses Qualcomm Technologies’ next-generation Snapdragon Cockpit Platform, the advanced system-on-a-chip (SoC) providing the highest level of processing power found inside a Volvo car to date.

Volvo says the technology enables ultra-fast responses from the system to the driver and occupants so they can have an AI-powered in-car experience via another first for Volvo, which is the addition of Google Gemini.

The AI assistant allows occupants to have conversations with the car, asking Gemini to find a hotel booking address in their email, check if a recently bought item fits in the EX60’s trunk or brainstorm ideas for an upcoming road trip.

That technology also makes the EX60 the first Volvo model capable of over 250 trillion operations per second, which the automaker said it is capable of learning with each passing mile.

The car will also draw on experiences from other Volvo cars globally, including accidents and near misses, to keep improving over time.

In Europe, the Volvo EX60 will be offered in three powertrain variants including the 500kW/790Nm dual motor P12 AWD Electric (with 810km of range), the 375kW/710Nm dual motor P10 AWD Electric (with 660km range), and the 275kW/480Nm single motor P6 Electric (with 620km range).

Several trim grades will be available.

The EX60 measures 4803mm long, 1899mm wide, 1639mm tall, and 2970mm in wheelbase. Boot space is a claimed 523 litres complemented by an 85-litre frunk.

The model is sold in Sweden with three years of free home charging, the offer applying immediately to private customers before being rolled out to other markets.

Additional to the EX60, Volvo has announced a ruggedised version called the EX60 Cross Country that is “built to do and see more”.

It rocks a “bold, distinctive design, a more robust and expressive look, culminating in a statement of freedom and exploration”.

Specific features include special wheels, Cross Country branding, skid plates in brushed stainless steel at the front and back and wider wheel arches.

Additionally, it benefits from a 20mm increase in ground clearance and air suspension, and can be specified with either AWD powertrain.