2026 Volvo EX30 Cross Country First Drive: Off-Road-ish Spec, in an Electric

The Volvo EX30 Cross Country news has been trickling out in the past few days, and the gist of what Volvo’s debuting is a version of the all-new EX30 Volvo compact EV lifted three-quarters of an inch, with a bunch of suspension fine tuning. After testing it on a frozen lake just below the Arctic Circle in Sweden I can report that the car is fun, agile, and beautiful inside and just rugged enough on the exterior. It should hit North American roughly this fall, for what probably is just under $50,000 in the loaded Ultra trim (though official pricing isn’t out yet).

This is Volvo’s first EV to wear a Cross Country badge and as such, it has a pretty big weight on its shoulders. But the spec is darn good. That’s a twin motor AWD drivetrain with 422 horsepower that can gun down 60 MPH in under 4.0 seconds, and comes with 19-inch wheels or optional 18s. The 64 kWh battery charges from 10-80 percent in as little as 26 minutes on a DC fast charger.

Back to the ICE Age

No, John Lundegren, an Engineer at Volvo involved in the chassis development of this car wasn’t joking when he said, “This car takes us back to the ICE age.” He meant the internal combustion age, and what he was referring to was the fact that because the EX30 Cross Country weighs a lot less than most EVs, at 4,200 pounds, it could be tuned to handle corners more softly.

The counter-intuitive part of that idea is that you might think that softening the springs—which Volvo did with the Cross Country to make it more capable off-road—would make the five-door compact feel sloppy around bends. But even on ice you could feel it take a corner smoothly and in a controlled manner. Weight transitions, which you do a lot of while trying to rocket around a frozen lake without stuffing a car into a snowbank, were tame and predictable. The more we drove the EX30 Cross Country, the more we appreciated that Lundegren and his team actually went with a rear anti-roll bar that’s 10% softer, which was again to aid in the car’s smoothness, especially when you’re pushing a vehicle hard and quickly.

Pretty On the Inside

Volvo, like so many other EV makers, has been migrating a lot of controls onto a central screen, and the EX30 Cross Country is no different, but fortunately not every dang function lives in sub-menus. For instance, there’s a manually adjustable steering wheel with an entirely mechanical setup, which shouldn’t have to be pointed out as a feature, but unfortunately that’s the reality of an over-digitized age.

Damning with one hand, I will say that Volvo’s next-generation Snapdragon Cockpit Platform is indeed very reactive, and transitions between setting screens and the infotainment system is utterly lag-free. Volvo claims that graphics generation is up to 10 times faster than in prior Volvo’s using Google Built-in, and that’s genuinely believable. One selling point of the EX30 could well be that the tech does work, it’s relatively intuitive, the Google Maps are great, and although it’s only using a sound bar design across the dash, to free up door space and reduce wiring weight, the Harmon Kardon sound system is pretty darn good, and it integrates a woofer and subwoofer to produce bass you can definitely feel, minus typical muddiness.

It’s not yet confirmed if Americans will get the same trim options, but we were testing cars with what Volvo calls Pine & Nordico upholstery, made in part using recycled polyester, pine oil and recycled PET (plastic bottles) as well as wool. Sitting on a recycling bin with some pine infusion might sound less than pleasant, but these are excellent perches, and they look sporty and sharp. Another option (again, available internationally at least) is seating made from upcycled denim.

Volvo says that it’s tinted enough, with laminated glass to protect from glare and UV radiation, but all that sun in, say, Phoenix in summer could make the EX30 Cross Country pretty toasty. As it was, since we were out testing at about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, that wasn’t a worry.

Volvo also made certain that small details rock in this cabin. There are nicely chunky, real metal door pulls that aren’t hidden or toyish, and the vent controls are likewise clever sliders that are unique, rather than off-the-shelf plastic toggles that feel characterless and are too common in the car biz.

In addition, there’s a sliding bin below the armrest to deploy cupholders, a central wireless phone charger, and below that, a bi-level bin that was perfect for stuffing a camera into, driving gloves, and it’s big enough to swallow a small handbag, too.

Note that I haven’t said much about the rear seats? They exist, and a taller passenger can even fit in “coach” without banging their beans. However, rear seat knee room, at a scant 32.3 inches, is only a bit better than in the back of a Mini Cooper Hardtop. You can make it work, but it’d be way kinder for a child than an adult.

Pragmatically speaking, this is a DINK (dual-income, no kids) car, and as such, the Cross Country’s not bad for cargo. Behind the second row there’s 25.4 cubic feet of capacity, which is really impressive for the class, and with those back seats down, that grows to… 35.3 cubic feet. Which is less than stellar when you consider a Hyundai Kona Electric has 45.8 cubic feet.

Interior Dimensions (Standard EX30)

For Safety’s Sake

Volvo wouldn’t be Volvo without a ton of standard safety tech. In the middle of a forest on a frozen lake, we didn’t need rear cross traffic alert or blind-spot detection, and luckily none of the attending press drove near enough to worry about the door opening alert for passing cars, but hey, the car comes with that—and a whole bunch more tech to save your life, too. I really do appreciate things such as lane keeping, adaptive cruise control, and one-pedal driving (where the car enters re-gen mode when you lift off the throttle).

What is worth props, however, is that in this EV you can partially disable stability and traction control, which made ice driving more fun, but is also necessary, Lundegren, explained, to enable some wheelspin at slow speeds when you’re trying to get the car unstuck from snow or mud, whether off-roading, or just starting off on a snowy morning in your driveway.

TopSpeed’s Take

There’s a lot we don’t know about the EX30 Cross Country’s performance, since we only got to drive it on a limited basis on a frozen lake.

One aspect we do know is that the car handles in a playful manner, and even on ice, you can feel its sprightliness. Partly, that’s down to a fairly svelte, 64 kWh, battery pack. It smartly uses 400-volt architecture, which means it can be charged quickly, from 10-80% in about 26 minutes. Still, the trade-off for a smaller battery could be range.

Performance Specifications

But here the lighter weight is clearly helping the EX30. While the EPA has yet to release numbers on the Cross Country, the dual-motor standard EX30 is rated at 253 miles per charge, which barely trails the The 2WD Kona Electric SEL, which gets 261 miles of range per charge.

And mind you, that Hyundai is running with two-wheel vs. all-wheel drive. The Volvo has some off-road pretense, vs. really none for the Kona Electric. At least in theory, that puts this Volvo ahead of the game.

But as usual, a lot depends on the price. And even as Americans are buying smaller cars again, that’s all about small cheap cars, not small premium ones. This is a super fun EV that’s also sharp looking. But it’s tough to know if that adds up to the same sales hit in the U.S. as Volvo’s seen in Europe.