Volvo EX30 review – Interior & comfort

The EX30 has all the typically Swedish design features we’ve come to expect from Volvo, including the same ‘Thor’s Hammer’ headlight signature worn by all the firm’s other cars. The baby SUV also has characteristically proud shoulders along the flanks and high-set two-part vertically arranged rear lights. 

There’s no front grille so the Volvo emblem is stamped into a body-coloured moulding, while darker panels along the sills match the contrasting roof to hide the car’s upright stance. It’s a premium-feeling car that’s likely to be attractive in the eyes of many buyers. A choice of five paint colours is available.

There’s a strong sustainability story when it comes to all the materials used in the EX30; Volvo says the car contains 25% recycled aluminium, 17% recycled steel and 17% recycled plastic.

There are four ‘room’ themes to choose from inside, each using different textures, colours and sustainable materials. We liked our test car’s ‘Breeze’ interior – the fabric looked great and felt premium despite being made from 100% recycled materials.

Don’t go worrying that this approach gives the cabin some sort of low-budget, make-do-and-mend feel, though: it’s all very tastefully done, and there are certainly no quibbles over the quality of the materials. Even the plastics across the top of the dashboard and around the centre console are nicely grained.

As is becoming more and more fashionable these days, the EX30 takes Volvo's ever-deepening obsession with minimalist interior design to new heights, but sometimes that feels like it comes at the expense of sensible ergonomics. There’s a large touchscreen - we’ll come onto this in more detail shortly - that handles, well, pretty much everything, so the dashboard is more or less free of external switches. Even opening the centrally-mounted glovebox lid requires an on-screen input.

A few of the switches that remain are positioned in odd places, too. The electric window switches are on the centre console rather than on the doors where you expect to find them, and the doors have no external mirror adjusters, either: repositioning those requires delving into a couple of menus and then pressing buttons on the steering wheel, which is a monumental faff and there’s a delay, so getting the precise angle you want can be tricky.

Even more surprising for safety-conscious Volvo is that there’s no instrument panel directly in front of the driver. The driving instrumentation has also been integrated into the central screen, meaning you have to glance left to keep an eye on your speed.

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Is the Volvo EX30 infotainment and navigation system easy to use?

As we’ve said, the EX30’s central infotainment display, which is 12.3 inches in size, takes care of almost every function in the car. Predictably, this can make the system rather bamboozling to use, simply due to the sheer amount of menus and submenus you need to wade through to perform the simplest of tasks. Sure, it looks swish, but that swishness has definitely come at the expense of useability, and some core controls like the rear window demister are much better served with a physical button.

As is the norm now with Volvo, the touchscreen is Google-powered, so the mapping is neat, the voice control works well, while Apple iPhone users can connect CarPlay wirelessly. Interestingly, you won’t find stereo speakers dotted around like in most other cars. Volvo has worked with Harman Kardon to put a seven-speaker soundbar into the car just beneath the windscreen, similar to those so popular in-home cinema set-ups. It works really well, with a nice depth to the sound and plenty of power, too. We reckon this is something that other car makers are sure to replicate in the future.

Is the Volvo EX30 well equipped?

There are Core, Plus and Ultra trim levels, but if you want a Twin Motor EX30 you’ll need to go for at least the mid-level Plus version. Even the Core trim is pretty well equipped, with features like climate control, a 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen, adaptive cruise control and 18-inch alloy wheels. The standard stereo is pretty loud too, with a 100-watt output.

Plus beefs up the climate control to dual-zone, and adds the heated front seats and steering wheel you expect when hopping in a Swedish car on a wintry morning. There’s a powered tailgate and a Harman Kardon sound system with a dashboard soundbar and seven speakers.

Ultra trim probably won’t be needed by most drivers, but it brings 20-inch alloy wheels and a 360-degree camera setup. There’s also a fixed panoramic sunroof, privacy glass and a 22kW onboard charger for faster AC charging where available.

What options should you choose on the Volvo EX30?

There are very few options to choose from on the Volvo EX30, with most features bundled into the trim levels. Personalisation boils down to a choice of five exterior paint colours and four different styles of upholstery for the interior.