Volvo EX30 Cross Country review

The Volvo EX30 Cross Country is a bit like a smartphone in a rugged case. While it still has the sleek design and advanced technology of the regular EX30, it’s been concealed behind an extra layer of protection to help it withstand the harsher conditions of outdoor pursuits.

It’s a fun concept that’s not entirely new, because the ‘Cross Countrification’ of Volvos has been a thing since 1997. Typically in the past, Volvo’s estate cars have been the only recipients, with four-wheel drive, a raised ride and chunky body cladding being the main additives. Now, though, the Swedish brand is applying the formula to its SUVs and electric cars for the first time.

Indeed, the EX30 Cross Country has four-wheel drive and 90mm of extra ride height, while chunky plastic body cladding gives protection to some of the bodywork. You can also add some rugged extras, including 18in wheels with all-terrain tyres.

At the moment, there are few electric SUVs that offer similar off-road upgrades, other than the Jeep Avenger Electric, Subaru Solterra and Toyota bZ4X.

The EX30 Cross Country may look different to the regular EX30 visually, but beneath its chunky body, it’s quite familiar.

That’s because it shares the same four-wheel drive setup as the Twin Motor Performance model, which means it gets a huge amount of power – 422bhp to be precise. With that, it can do 0-62mph in just 3.7sec – less than half the time the Jeep Avenger Electric can manage (9.0sec). It’s even quicker than the Smart #1 Brabus, let alone most sports cars.

Despite all that power, the accelerator pedal is very easy to modulate, so the EX30 Cross Country is smooth to drive. It’s only when you really step on it that the car surges forwards at an alarming rate, with noticeable lift from the nose as you’re pinned back in your seat.

Thankfully, the brake pedal is progressive when the regenerative braking is switched off. We’d keep the car out of the highest energy recovery setting because it allows for quite a jerky driving style. The low setting is less aggressive, or you can turn it off completely and let the car coast - a feature that’s unavailable in the closely related Smart #1.

Along with the raised ride height, the suspension in the EX30 Cross Country has been softened so the car can deal with rough off-road terrain. The suspension absorbs lumps and bumps really well, and despite the softer set-up it doesn’t feel too wallowy over undulations. As such, the ride is more comfortable than in a standard EX30 or an Avenger Electric.

Likewise, when driving on a long, sweeping bend, the car stays planted and composed. However, on sharp turns there is noticeable body lean – more so than in the standard car. The light steering, which has been carried over from the standard car, doesn’t help you place the car as precisely as you might like either, even in its heaviest setting.

If you want to take your EX30 Cross Country off-road, you might be disappointed to find it only has one off-road driving function: hill-descent control. This automatically maintains a constant downhill speed for you without the driver needing to apply the brake pedal. Otherwise, the driving modes from the Twin Motor Performance are carried over.

Other than a bit of wind noise around the door mirrors, the EX30 Cross Country is a very quiet cruiser. There’s little road noise entering the interior, even when fitted with the optional off road-biased tyres.

To power the punchy motors, the Cross Country gets the same 65kWh (usable) battery as the Single Motor Extended Range EX30, but because of the extra motor, added weight and raised ride height, the official range drops to 265 miles (down from 295 miles). That's further than an Avenger Electric (249 miles) but not as far as the Subaru Solterra (289 miles) or Toyota bZ4X when equipped with four wheel drive (286 miles).

“I think it’s a shame the EX30 Cross Country only has hill-descent control. Even the front-wheel-drive-only Jeep Avenger Electric gets mud, sand and snow modes.” – George Hill, Used Cars Writer

The EX30 Cross Country’s interior looks very premium. It’s only available in the range-topping Ultra trim so you get a couple of colour and trim options to make it look special.

While some of the materials are hard and scratchy to touch, they still have a high-quality feel to them and it’s noticeably more upmarket inside than the Jeep Avenger Electric.

Despite the raised ride height, the driving position doesn’t feel very high for an SUV. Even so, it's still relatively easy to get comfortable behind the wheel. The seats provide plenty of lower back support, with adjustable lumbar and full electric seat adjustment as standard. A bit more thigh support wouldn’t go amiss to keep you in place when cornering, though.

Forward visibility is very good in the EX30 Cross Country, with slim windscreen pillars and a clear view over the bonnet. It’s better than in an Avenger, and while the thick rear pillars obscure your view over the shoulder, the view out the back windscreen is pretty good and isn’t obscured by the rear headrests. To help with this, all versions get front and rear parking sensors, blind-spot monitoring and a 360-degree camera.

The Cross Country doesn’t have a driver’s display. Instead, the speed and trip information are displayed on the centrally-mounted touchscreen. While this info is on the driver’s side of the screen, it’s still distracting to look at on the move. The setup in the Avenger, Subaru Solterra and Toyota bZ4X are better, with their separate driver displays.

All EX30s get a 12.3in infotainment touchscreen with Google-based software. It operates much like a smartphone, with sharp graphics and a quick touchscreen response. 

However, like in the regular EX30, you have to rely heavily on the touchscreen to perform basic tasks. That means, whether it’s to adjust the door mirrors or open the glovebox (or the boot), you have to prod around to find a small icon, which makes it extremely fiddly.  With too many sub-menus to delve through when trying to find certain functions, it’s more distracting to use on the move than the system in the bZ4X and Solterra, which also have physical shortcut buttons that are much easier to aim for (you won’t find many of those in here).

On the plus side, all EX30s get a Google Maps sat-nav app and a Google Assistant voice-control system. There's no Android Auto but you do get wireless Apple CarPlay.

The EX30’s sound system consists of a ‘sound bar’ that integrates all of its speakers up front on top of the dash by the base of the front windscreen. You get a punchy sub-woofer but the rest of the sound quality is disappointing and not particularly immersive.

“The EX30 Cross Country is small but it feels very well made. I really like how the doors close with a reassuring thud.” – George Hill, Used Cars Writer

The EX30 Cross Country is quite a boxy electric SUV and the standard fit panoramic roof doesn’t eat into the generous amount of head room you get up front. The seats slide back a long way on their runners, too, so even those above 6ft tall should be able to fit comfortably.

In the back, a couple of six-footers will just about fit in the rear seats, where head room is decent enough and leg room respectable. While it’s better than the Jeep Avenger Electric in the back, the Kia EV3 and Smart #1 are roomier in the rear. The Subaru Solterra and Toyota bZ4X are in a different league altogether for rear-seat space, being much larger electric SUVs.

For a middle-seat passenger, the EX30's flat floor helps with foot space, but we wouldn’t advise carrying three people in the back for long journeys. The middle seat is quite small so shoulder room isn’t very generous. 

Like the regular EX30, the Cross Country has 318 litres of boot space. While that’s bigger than a #1 (273 litres), it’s not quite as big as an Avenger Electric (355 litres) or bZ4X (452 litres). Even so, we managed to fit five carry-on suitcases below the parcel shelf in the EX30, which is the same as the Avenger but less than the bZ4X, which swallowed eight.

The EX30 Cross Country gets a height-adjustable boot floor as standard. This is handy if you want to eliminate the load lip or if you want to store the charging cable under the boot floor. Speaking of which, there’s a storage area under the bonnet too, which is another good spot for the charging cable.

If you want to carry longer items in the boot, you can fold down the rear seats in a 60/40 arrangement. That’s similar to what most electric SUVs of this size can do.

“The EX30 Cross Country may not be the most spacious electric SUV, but it is better in the back than the Jeep Avenger Electric. At 6ft2in, I really struggled to fit in the Avenger, but in the EX30 I was just about comfortable.” – George Hill, Used Cars Writer

The EX30 Cross Country is quite expensive for a small electric SUV, costing significantly more than the entry-level EX30 and being similar in price to much larger cars, including the Subaru Solterra and Toyota bZ4X. The Jeep Avenger Electric is considerably cheaper.

That high price is partly because the Cross Country is based on top-spec Ultra trim - the priciest version of the regular EX30.

At least that means it comes with a lot of kit as standard, including 19in alloy wheels, heated and electrically adjustable front seats, a heated steering wheel, dual-zone climate control, a powered tailgate and a panoramic glass sunroof.

If you want to make your EX30 Cross Country even more rugged, there are several bespoke options available that you can’t add to a regular EX30. They include 18in alloys with knobbly all-terrain tyres and a metal roof rack. 

As for charging speeds, the EX30 Cross Country has a maximum rate of 153kW, which means a 10-80% top-up should take around 28 minutes with a suitably powerful charger. That’s similar to the Avenger, bZ4X and Solterra.

The EX30 achieved the full five-star rating when it was crash-tested by Euro NCAP in 2024. Looking deeper into the results, the EX30 scored well when it came to protecting adults in the front and got full marks for protecting children in the back during a crash. 

As you’d expect from Volvo, you get plenty of safety kit as standard, including automatic emergency braking (AEB), blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, traffic-sign recognition and a system that alerts occupants if they start to open a door when a cyclist or car is approaching.

In our 2025 What Car? Reliability Survey, the EX30 finished mid-table in the Electric SUV class, claiming 15th place out of 27 rivals. As a brand, Volvo ranked in a below average 21st place out of 30 manufacturers. That’s a disappointing score, sitting way below Kia and Toyota, but just above Mercedes and Audi.

All Volvos get a three-year, 60,000-mile warranty as standard, which is less than Kia and Toyota’s offering. The battery is covered for up to eight years or 100,000 miles, though.

“If you find yourself diving into the touchscreen while driving, the driver attention monitoring system is likely to tell you to look at the road. This happened to me several times while driving the EX30 Cross Country and I found it even more distracting.” – George Hill, Used Cars Writer

Buy it if…

- You fancy an EX30 with a slightly higher seating position 

- You want the most comfortable riding EX30

- You’d like a decent list of standard features

Don’t buy it if…

- You’re looking for a dedicated electric off-roader

- You don’t particularly like relying on one touchscreen

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