The brand new Volvo EX60 has been revealed because the Swedish agency’s most essential mannequin in years, introducing a ‘game-changing’ new platform, a collection of radical in-car know-how and the capability to “finish vary anxiousness” with a colossal, class-leading vary of as much as 503 miles.
The EX60 made its debut in Stockholm final week as Volvo’s fourth bespoke EV, marking the agency’s entry into the essential premium electrical SUV section – by which its important rivals would be the not too long ago revealed BMW iX3 and Mercedes-Benz GLC EQ.
Due within the UK from September, with costs beginning at £56,850, the EX60 is the primary automotive to make use of Volvo’s essential new SPA3 platform, which revolutionises not simply the way in which the agency builds its automobiles but additionally the know-how they include and what that know-how can do.
It’ll function the electrical equal to Volvo’s long-time best-seller, the XC60, which has not too long ago been up to date and can stay on sale with a alternative of mild-hybrid and and plug-in hybrid powertrains alongside its new EV sibling – mirroring the connection between the bigger XC90 and EX90.
Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson stated the petrol automotive “will keep available on the market as a type of bridge resolution so long as it is wanted, as a result of that is the place we’re much less dogmatic”.
“We’re dogmatic about going full pace with all-electric automobiles, and the brand new platform is a basis for that, however we’re much less dogmatic in setting a date after we actually will shut down and abandon our prospects,” he continued.
“In the event that they nonetheless need the plug-ins, no downside. And we are able to now be very impartial, as a result of these have margin parity. So if folks need to go ‘EX’, no downside: it is the identical margin for us. And in the event that they keep [‘XC’], allow them to keep.”
New-age, light-weight platform
The EX60 is the primary automotive to make use of Volvo’s new SPA3 platform for EVs, which – as with the brand new Neue Klasse and MEA platforms that underpin its BMW and Mercedes rivals respectively – introduces new development strategies, a household of next-generation motors and superior battery applied sciences that increase vary, cost-efficiencies, dynamics and security.
The SPA3 is described as extremely modular – it may be used for automobiles ranging in measurement from the EX30 (4.2m lengthy) to the EX90 (5.0m) – and might be used for all upcoming bespoke Volvo EVs, in addition to some automobiles from different manufacturers within the Geely group (together with the Polestar 7 crossover in 2028, for instance).
Regardless of its designation, the SPA3 is totally totally different from the SPA2 beneath the EX90 and ES90 EVs. “It’s extremely totally different from SPA2,” Samuelsson informed Autocar. “I might have most well-liked one other title which signifies that it’s very new.”
The chief distinction is that, in contrast to these older platforms, the SPA3 is engineered solely for EVs, which Samuelsson stated makes it a “no compromise” construction that permits the EX60 to match or beat its rivals in a number of key metrics.
It is “born electrical, totally scalable and introduces key applied sciences to decrease price and enhance efficiency”, he added.
One in all these essential developments is the usage of a radical new ‘mega-casting’ manufacturing technique, whereby sections of the automotive’s construction are shaped from molten metallic in a die-cast mould, enabling giant elements to be produced as single items quite than composed of quite a few particular person elements being welded or bolted collectively.
