Volvo touts EX60’s vary and charging pace forward of official debut
Volvo is beginning to trickle out some particulars about its upcoming midsize electrical SUV, the EX60, earlier than its official debut January twenty first. The EX60 can have an estimated vary of 400 miles (or 810km based mostly on the beneficiant WLTP normal in Europe). That’s considerably extra vary than any earlier Volvo EV — at the least till the 434-mile-range ES90 sedan comes out. And the EX60 would be the first automobile to learn from the automaker’s new megacasting manufacturing course of to scale back weight and enhance manufacturing effectivity.
“One of many issues that we needed to do was to create an electrical automobile with no compromises,” Akhil Krishnan, head of program administration for the EX60, informed me. “It shouldn’t be a compromise so that you can select to drive electrical, in order that was very, essential for us.”
To that finish, enhancing the automobile’s vary and charging time had been chief among the many objectives of Krishnan and his staff. They needed to remodel “vary anxiousness” into “vary consolation,” which means the driving force would have a lot vary that it not turns into a hinderance — just like how customers don’t select gasoline vehicles based mostly on tank dimension.
However vary alone is just not sufficient; charging pace was additionally essential. Krishnan stated that Volvo performed in depth buyer analysis and located that many EV house owners felt compelled to plan their lives round charging stops, usually ready 40 minutes or extra. Volvo needed the EX60 to suit into pure human breaks as a substitute. As an illustration, if a driver stops for 10 minutes to get espresso or use the restroom, the automobile ought to be able to go once more inside that point.
The EX60 ought to meet that normal due to its 800-volt structure, a primary for Volvo. Different automakers, like Hyundai and Kia, have stood out amid cooling demand for EVs due to their fast-charging, 800-volt-architecture autos, and now Volvo needs to do the identical. The EX60 can cost from 10–80 p.c in 19 minutes, or add 168 miles of vary in simply 10 minutes, when utilizing a 400kW quick charger.
However vary alone is just not sufficient; charging pace was additionally essential
After all, discovering a charger that may produce such speeds may very well be an issue, particularly right here within the US — nevertheless it’s actually getting higher. Krishnan stated that Volvo’s purpose is to ship glorious charging efficiency not solely on 400kW chargers but in addition on extra widespread 250kW models.
The automobile is constructed on Volvo’s new SPA3 platform, designed solely for electrical autos, with none legacy constraints from combustion engines. The EX60 isn’t counting on any battery breakthroughs to realize its improved vary — the nickel-cobalt-manganese chemistry is similar as the remainder of the EV lineup — however slightly developments in manufacturing, like megacasting and using a structural battery pack, to scale back weight and enhance the automobile’s integrity. It is going to additionally embrace battery preconditioning so the battery is on the proper temperature for optimum charging to assist maintain these greater speeds.
The brand new platform permits not simply weight financial savings but in addition value reductions, with estimated component-level financial savings of 20–35 p.c, serving to preserve pricing aggressive with fuel and hybrid equivalents, Krishnan stated. Volvo has stated it intends to cost the EX60 at across the similar because the XC60 plug-in hybrid, which proper now begins at round $63,000.
Volvo can also be providing for the primary time a worldwide 10-year battery guarantee masking as much as 240,000km. This extends the corporate’s earlier eight-year protection and, in accordance with Krishnan, displays confidence in its in-house battery growth and manufacturing capabilities.
The EX60 can have different tips up its sleeve, too, together with vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid performance as normal throughout all markets and trims. Volvo has already introduced a partnership with Swedish power supplier Vattenfall to discover how the EX60 and different Volvo EVs might help stabilize and steadiness the grid.
Krishnan sees the EX60 as a essential piece that was lacking from Volvo’s EV technique: a household SUV that’s extra reasonably priced than the automaker’s three-row, $80,000-plus EX90. “So it’s a really huge addressable marketplace for the automobile,” he stated.
The EX60 will likely be in-built Volvo’s Gothenburg manufacturing facility, with manufacturing set to start within the first half of 2026.