We Test One of the First Chinese-Made EVs For Sale In America, the Volvo EX30 - Here’s What You’ll Find Familiar and What You Won’t

We’re thrilled to have had a chance to test and review a battery-electric vehicle imported from China. Our media test vehicle this week is a Volvo EX30. The one we drove was built in Zhangjiakou, China, from 100% Chinese parts. The EX30 is an entry-level electric vehicle from the Volvo brand, which is part of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. This is not the first Chinese-made U.S.-market vehicle I’ve had the chance to test. That would be a conventionally-powered Buick I tested years ago. This is the first one that is electric. Here’s what we found that we think will interest shoppers.

Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra - Price
We’ll start with price, since we commonly hear that Chinese-made EVs will have dramatically lower costs by comparison to other manufacturing points and other brands and companies. We used Volvo’s public website build tool today to configure an EX30 as close to our early-production tester as possible. It came to $48,545. We are not sure if that price includes the Destination and Delivery fee, since Volvo’s page only offers an estimated price. We’d budget about $500 for dealer Doc fees on top of this number.

Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra - Where Is It Built Right Now?
According to Volvo sources we found, the EX30 is presently being built in Ghent, Belgium (Why not Sweden?), and imported to the United States. There was speculation that the EX30 would be built at one of Volvo’s North American plants, but that is not the case, according to sources I found. Volvo does build some of its U.S.-market vehicles inside of the United States, but not this one.

Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra - How Does It Drive?
The EX30 is quick and nimble. We found it to be a joy to drive around town. It has torque aplenty, and it scoots in every real-world scenario. Handling is also great. Sharp turn in, little noticeable body lean, and a perfectly-tuned brake pedal. Visibility is also outstanding. This is a vehicle any driver will enjoy, and the type of car you’ll opt to take out for a drive just for the fun of it. In the context of a small crossover vehicle costing about $50K, we’d say it is among the best in the segment. It’s also quiet, and the premium Michelin Primacy tires it wears likely helped that.

Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra - Interior & Exterior Pluses
One thing the Volvo brand has in spades is style. Inside, you’ll find that Scandinavian look and feel you love if you’re a Volvo fan. Personally, I truly love the design language. The seats were covered in what looked and felt like denim. Fantastic, and so much better than plasticy-feeling leather in cold weather. The dash has a simple, clean appearance. There is a full glass roof, which lets in a lot of welcome mid-winter sunshine. The feature that most impressed me was the “frameless” style side mirrors. I’ve never seen any brand pay such close attention to that part of a vehicle before. They look really cool, and give the vehicle a distinct premium feel.

Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra - Interior Minuses
If you want a vehicle with traditional controls, this is not your car. Every single element of this car is different from, say, a Lexus, BMW, Genesis, Mazda, Acura, or Subaru. As you enter, you’ll want to adjust the side-view mirrors, right? In virtually every modern car, the controls are on the driver’s door panel, and a driver can operate them easily with one hand, while underway, and without looking. Not in the EX30. You need to go to the single huge screen, aim and tap the car symbol, then aim and tap mirrors, then aim and tap left or right, then use the steering wheel controls to adjust the mirrors. Who designed this controls travesty and thought they were being clever?

There is no way for a passenger to practically control the audio volume in the EX30. Volume is on the steering wheel, which is fine for the driver, but a knob sure makes things easier when you’re with another person.

The window controls are not on the doors (near the windows). They are on a small lip of the center console.

The center console slides out, and the cup-holder takes up the top of that. You can’t put your wallet or any other item into it and then close it with a cup in it. So, to put an item away for security, you need to use the hidden glove box, which is not operated the way glove boxes are, but instead has an opening icon on the center single huge screen, but not on all views of that screen.

There is no traditional stop-and-start. Volvo has an electronic key and a fob that has no buttons on it. When we would approach the EX30 fob in the pocket, and grab the locked door, it would often not open. You have to touch it just right. And not the way you grab a door handle out of instinct. I turned to Reddit to see if I was the only one having this issue, or if a mechanical engineer needed a lesson on opening a car door. I found that I was not alone, was using it properly, and many owners reported that the door was tricky to operate. Nobody you loan this car to who does not own a Volvo EX30 will know how to work this. One more worry - the EX30 locks itself. Something I want no car I own to ever do. 

Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra - Infotainment
Volvo has opted to use a Google Built-In infotainment setup, so you have Google Maps as your Nav. It’s included when you buy the car, but ask your dealer if the included subscription ends at some point in the future. I love Google Maps, and in my half Android half Apple household, everyone uses it, regardless of which phone team they favor. However, Google built-in does not know whether you searched for a place, let’s say Town Hall Anywhere USA, before you entered the EX30. Google Maps running on your phone does, and will suggest that as a destination when you enter a vehicle using Android Auto.

In my household, we have about six cars that we all share among the family’s generations. Any of us can enter any of those six, many from different brands, and the infotainment will automatically have all our apps ready to go, as well as our nav history. The screen is identical and familiar. It’s also instantaneous after you’ve accepted the car's Android Auto and Apple CarPlay prompts once (ever). Not in the EX30. If you wish to use Audible, Pandora, YouTube Music, or whatever floats your boat, you need to add that to this Volvo, and then you sign in. Then your spouses, kids, and parents would all have to do that too. 

Instead of loading in all my apps and then signing in with the password and username I forgot three years ago, I used good old Bluetooth (and I do mean old). I could run any one of my apps at a time. Not switch back and forth. And the apps were very reluctant to start after I entered and began driving. It was distracting.

The heat controls for seats and the HVAC, are also only accessed via the one giant screen. You need to look away from the road to operate them. Many tasks take multiple aims and taps. By contrast, a Subaru Crosstrek this same size controls the heated seats as a toggle switch on the center console that you can operate without looking. 

There is no driver information display between the spokes of the steering wheel, nor was there a head-up display in the vehicle I tested. The speedometer is down and to the right of the windshield. This seems at odds with Volvo’s safety culture.

Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra - Missing Features
There is no spare tire in the Volvo EX30. If you damage a tire while traveling with your family on a Sunday returning from skiing, your EX30 will be towed, and you will need alternative transportation. There is more than enough room for a compact spare under the cargo floor. Our media tester had a mobile charge cable and a bunch of adapters rolling around in that space.

The seat controller is a single square knob on the side of the seat bottom. We never figured out how to tilt up the thigh area. Why and how is this controller an improvement over traditional power seat controls in all other $50K vehicles?

The EX30 we tested had CCS / J1772 charging connections. Which means it’s not equipped with a Tesla-style NACS port. Are we going to switch or not? At home, I don't care. I have a wall-mounted charger of each style, and I suspect 99% of shoppers paying $50K for a compact crossover can afford a home charger of their own. However, nobody wants to carry around and mess with adapters on the road.

Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra - What Do Other Reviewers Say About This Vehicle
Most reviews of the Volvo EX30 report that it is very quick. That’s not an opinion so much as a factual observation. The thing is snappy and fun, for certain. Overall, the reviews of the EX30 seemed mixed, and most seemed to capture some of the angst we had about the vehicle. Inside EV’s review was titled “Not What We Wanted.” Motoring Research called the door controls “pitiful.” One Reddit review called the EX30 “A Premium-Looking Car That Drives Like a Headache.” Most of the coverage of the EX30 we found was centered on Volvo and Geely moving the production out of China (quickly) and into Belgium (why not Sweden?). You may have heard that there is a bit of a trade disruption going on right now related to Chinese-built EVs.

Volvo EX30 Twin Motor Performance Ultra - Wrap Up and Opinion of the Author
There is a lot to like about the first battery-electric vehicle to have snuck into the United States. What I can say with certainty, having tested other Chinese vehicle imports, is that China can build outstanding automobiles. Chinese-built vehicles earn high safety ratings and have proven to be very reliable. One general theme is that Chinese automakers have leaped ahead. The Chinese observed, through mandatory joint ventures, how the American, European, and Asian established automakers built cars, what type they built, and they opted not to copy that model but to reject it and say, “How should a modern car be built, and what would it be like to the user?” This is reflected in the EX30. Unfortunately, the Chinese don’t have a 50-year history of automobile ergonomics and controls muscle memory to draw on. Many of the “modern” aspects of this vehicle simply feel like they were made differently for the sake of being different.

My opinion is that the EX30 makes sense for Volvo. It’s already a niche within a subsegment of the auto industry, and trying to copy or “beat” Tesla at the high end and BYD at the low end is futile. Nobody does luxury better than Volvo. Nobody does Scandinavian better than Volvo. Pour those two ingredients into a Chinese EV mold, and out pops the EX30. If this vehicle had conventional controls, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, a spare tire, and a price tag of $40K, it would be my favorite vehicle of the past decade. I’d buy one regardless of who made it or where it was made. 
 

Tell us your thoughts on the Volvo EX30 in the comments section below.

All images by John Goreham

John Goreham is the Vice President of the New England Motor Press Association and an expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his fourteen years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on LinkedIn and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. John employs grammar and punctuation software when proofreading, and he sometimes uses image generation tools.