2027 Volvo EX60 First Drive: Volvo starts over on EVs with midsize SUV
Quiet, calm, and identifiably a Volvo, the EX60 expands the brand’s EV lineup into the popular midsize SUV segment—in a variety of performance levels and prices.
The 2027 Volvo EX60 is only the brand’s second ground-up battery-electric vehicle, after the larger US-built three-row EX90 SUV launched in September 2024. That model had major teething troubles in its software, though they’ve now largely been resolved. Two years later, the smaller midsize EX60 uses a different, new dedicated EV platform. Within a year the EX60 lineup will include three distinct models: P6, P10, and P12, with three different battery capacities, each offering an EPA-rated range of more than 300 miles.
Production of EX60 models bound for the US started in April. Shoppers can now configure the P6 and P10 versions that will arrive at dealers this summer, with the P12 following “soon after that.” Prices will start at $59,795 for the base P6 Plus version and go up to more than $68,745 for a P10 AWD Ultra model, which has a longer range, more power, and more standard equipment.
The low-end model is pricier than its XC60 Plus gasoline counterpart ($55,595), but less expensive than the plug-in hybrid version of the XC60 ($63,940). The P12 with more power and range hasn’t been priced yet. An EX60 Cross Country model, using the P10 or P12 powertrains, is already available in Europe, so it’ll undoubtedly come to the US as well.
Among European luxury brands, the EX60 competes with the BMW iX3 ($62,850 and up) and the soon-to-arrive Mercedes-Benz GLC EV. There’s also the Tesla Model Y, which starts as low as $42K or so—though Tesla prices change so often you should check the current number yourself.
We drove both a P6 RWD and a P10 AWD model in Barcelona and the hilly regions outside the city, both in the top-of-the-line Ultra trim. It proved a very competent EV SUV that we think will appeal strongly to Volvo buyers. It may also bring new buyers into the brand. That could help Volvo, which had a rough year in which it had to cope with new tariffs on auto imports, the end of the federal EV purchase incentive, and withdrawing its least expensive EV model, the EX30.
Photos by John Voelcker.
Recognizably Volvo, more avant-garde
From the outside, the EX60 is still recognizably a Volvo SUV—or perhaps a tall wagon, if you squint. But it has crisper and harder-edged lines than the Volvo XC60 gasoline model it parallels. It’s the next step in Volvo’s evolved design language first seen on the larger EX90, especially at the rear.
The front is obviously Volvo, with a flat panel where the grille would be that includes a prominent “ironmark,” as the Volvo circle-with-an-arrow is known. At the back end, however, Volvo’s signature outboard vertical lights reappear. A single vertical corner taillight is the most obvious rear element, but the lights above the beltline in thin vertical segments are all but hidden in black trim until they illuminate.
Inside, the EX60 continues the brand’s traditional Scandinavian modern theme, with a more tech-forward look. It has fewer switches and hard controls, a 15.0-inch central screen for the majority of vehicle controls, and an 11.4-inch digital display cluster for the driver just at the base of the windshield.
Photos by Volvo.
Power, or more power
The P6 rear-wheel-drive model we drove first is the least powerful EX60 that’ll be sold in the US. With a single 275-kilowatt (369-horsepower) motor at the rear, it’s still more than capable of keeping up with Spanish traffic—and, we suspect, traffic in affluent US suburbs and on our highways. Volvo says it’ll accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 5.7 seconds; we call that entirely sufficient.
The more powerful P10 AWD has front and rear motors whose output totals 375 kW (503 hp). Volvo quotes 0 to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds for this one. EPA-rated ranges are 307 miles combined for the P6 and 322 for the P10 when each is on 20-inch or 21-inch tires, but the top-end 22-inch tires cut range to 295 and 312 miles respectively. Then there’s the P12, with 400 miles of range on 20-inch tires—and less for the larger wheels.
Regenerative braking felt stronger in the P10, with a second motor to recharge the battery, but in either model it was easily learned and almost intuitive to drive. By this point, Volvo has had a lot of time to tune its acceleration and regen algorithms, and it took all of 90 seconds before they were second nature—the mark of experienced EV designers.
On-road handling and roadholding was similarly predictable, with both models of the EX60 easy to place, even in the twisting curves of the hill country outside Barcelona. Far more wieldy than the large and heavy EX90, the new midsize EV weighs 4,660 to 5,140 pounds, relatively svelte among midsize EVs with 300-plus miles of range.
What’s listed as the “One-pedal drive” setting might better be called “Strong Regen,” since it won’t take the car to a complete stop. The driver still has to step in and brake for the last 6 mph or so, though it will hold the car once stopped if idle creep is turned off. Drivers who prefer to mimic the behavior of a gasoline vehicle with automatic transmission can keep idle creep on, of course. The Auto setting lets the car glide under certain conditions, to minimize energy use, and works with the adaptive cruise control to recapture energy while slowing.
The charge port door is located on the right rear corner, with a lid that flips upward to shield the plug port from rain or snow, a nice touch. While our European model had a CCS-2 port, all North American vehicles will be fitted with a NACS (Tesla) port. The onboard AC charger is rated at 19.2 kW, while Volvo says the EX60 can DC fast-charge from 10 to 80 percent at up to 350 kW, giving a charging time as low as 16 minutes under ideal circumstances.
Cell-to-pack battery, one megacasting
The larger EX90 sat on what Volvo dubbed its SPA2 platform, standing for Scalable Product Architecture (SPA1 was the original XC90 of 2016). Just two years later, the EX60 rides on SPA3, with several advances: a cell-to-pack battery that forgoes the use of modules to hold the cells altogether and serves as the cabin floor. It also uses Volvo’s first-ever megacasting and a more powerful central processor, called HuginCore, that it developed to allow future safety and feature expansions via over-the-air updates.
The cell-to-pack design of the EX60 battery arrays the cells vertically, in closely spaced rows with a thick layer of insulation on both sides of each cell to prevent failure in an individual cell from propagating to its neighbor. The P6 and P10 each use the same nickel-based cells, from Sunwoda, with the 95 kilowatt-hour capacity (91 kWh usable) of the P10 filling the case entirely, while the P6 eliminates a few rows of cells at the back of the pack for its lower 83 kWh capacity (80 kWh usable). The P12 has different, more energy dense cells using a higher nickel content supplied by CATL—which also fill the pack—for a higher capacity of 117 kWh (112 kWh usable).
Eliminating modules has been one emerging technology trend among recent EV designs; another is the use of large single castings to replace complex structures made up of dozens or hundreds of smaller steel stampings that need to be welded together. Volvo is using only one mega-casting in the EX60; it forms the rear chassis section of the vehicle behind the back of the battery pack, carries the rear suspension, and absorbs crash loads from rear collisions.
Asked why Volvo hadn’t done two such castings, adding one for the front section as well—as Ford has done for its Universal Electric Vehicle platform that will underlie an upcoming $30,000 midsize electric pickup and other models—chief engineering and technology officer Anders Bell told Charged there were several reasons.
First, it wanted to get experience with large castings: walk before you run. Second, a front structure is more complex to the greater needs for energy dissipation in frontal crashes, so more computer modeling and physical testing is required. Finally, the substantial need for machining the finished casting to mount other components suggested there would be no net cost savings. The goal, he said, is to create castings that can be assembled “as cast”—without any further machining—and Volvo isn’t there yet.
Comfortable, smooth … and still screen-based
The EX60 seats four adults in comfort, and a fifth passenger in the center rear will find the flat floor a pleasant feature. All occupants sit slightly more knees-up than they would in, say, an XC60, but that’s an unavoidable consequence of having several inches of battery pack underfoot. The top of the battery pack is actually the floor of the car, with a large hole in the body shell. Its complex sill structures are split between the rails along the edges of the pack and the sheet metal below each door.
Cargo volume is 20.4 cubic feet with the rear seat up and 58.2 cubic feet with the second row folded down. There’s also a 3-cubic-foot front trunk. The tailgate includes Volvo’s “Will It Fit?” graphic, but the European versions we drove had one feature we’d never seen. That was a bucket with the image of a crab stamped into it, in a compartment under the rear load deck—used to bring home your catch from a day of crabbing at the beach, apparently a popular Swedish hobby. That bucket seems unlikely to make it to North America, however.
Like the EX90, the midsize Volvo EV is unlocked and started via the user’s mobile phone. For those who prefer not to have to carry their phone to drive their car, a key card will be standard as well. Want a traditional fob? One will be available as an extra-cost option.
Behind the wheel, most controls are done through the center screen, including steering-wheel and door-mirror positioning. That’s fine, since each phone unlock will identify the user’s presets to the car. Less ideal is the need to go into the center screen to reposition the air vents—a perennial irritation for drivers who want a lot of hot or cold air to start, then less as the cabin warms or cools. Yes, the car can be preconditioned. But attempting to adjust vent positions on a center screen at speed is a bad and dangerous idea.
Quiet and peaceful
The EX60 is an extremely quiet and peaceful car to ride in. At least on Spanish road surfaces, we head very little tire noise, and only occasional wind noise from the door mirrors. It was easy to drive, produced little stress under any circumstance, and was clearly more maneuverable than the EX90 we drove two years ago—without that car’s regrettable bugs. It’s the kind of car we can see in growing numbers of affluent suburban driveways.
All EX60s are assembled at the company’s main production plant at Torslanda, just outside its headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden. That makes them presently subject to the newly raised 25-percent tariff on vehicles imported from Europe, though since Volvo also exports cars from its plant in Ridgeville, South Carolina, it can offset some amount of those. One final note: The mandatory delivery fee (included in all prices cited) is $1,395—very reasonable these days, when carmakers have boosted such fees to $1,500, $2,000, or even more for higher-end models.
Volvo’s not yet done with its modern EV lineup. But overall, the 2027 Volvo EX60 ticked pretty much every box for a premium or luxury midsize crossover utility EV with 300 to 400 miles of range. We suspect it will prove attractive to some of today’s XC60 buyers who are willing to take the plunge and go battery-electric.
Volvo provided airfare, lodging, and meals to enable Charged to bring you this first-person drive report.
Ford rotor built with 100% recycled rare earth magnets passes durability test
A UK consortium has completed an end-to-end circular rare earth supply chain for electric vehicle motor magnets, with Ford validating the results at its R&D facility in Dunton, UK.
The chain ran as follows: Ionic Technologies, a Belfast-based subsidiary of Australia’s Ionic Rare Earths (ASX: IXR), recycled scrap NdFeB magnets and alloy into individually separated rare earth oxides. Less Common Metals (LCM) converted those oxides into metal and strip-cast alloy to magnet specification. GKN manufactured the finished magnets at its facility in Radevormwald, Germany. Ford built two test rotors at its Halewood e-motor plant, then ran one on a dynamometer at Dunton—where it passed a durability test cycle with results comparable to rotors made with production-grade, mined-material magnets.
The purity numbers held up. Ionic Technologies produced neodymium oxide (Nd₂O₃) at 99.87%, dysprosium oxide (Dy₂O₃) at 99.56%, and terbium oxide (Tb₄O₇) at 99.75%, all from 100% recycled feedstock. The batch volumes—120 kg of Nd₂O₃, 10 kg of Dy₂O₃, and 8 kg of Tb₄O₇—exceeded LCM’s minimum batch requirements. GKN reported the recycled alloy flakes behaved identically to virgin material during magnet manufacturing and produced the same end specification.
China’s export controls on rare earth materials, announced earlier this year, have thrown Western automotive supply chains into sharp relief. Dysprosium and terbium—both produced here from recycled scrap—are precisely the heavy rare earth elements most affected by those controls, as they’re critical for high-temperature coercivity in EV traction motor magnets.
“Electric vehicle motors rely on high quality rare earth permanent magnets,” said Dennis Witt, UK Innovation Manager at Ford. “We proved that recycled magnets can meet our rigorous commercial standards on the first attempt.”
The project was funded under the UK Government’s CLIMATES initiative via the Department for Business and Trade and InnovateUK. It’s not mass production—Ionic Technologies is still working toward a Final Investment Decision on an £85 million commercial plant at Queen’s Island in Belfast, which has received an offer in principle for a £12 million UK government capital grant. Planned capacity is 400 metric tonnes of magnet REOs per year.
A follow-on project, CirculaREEconomy, funded through the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK’s £2 billion DRIVE35 programme, is already underway with the same partners.
Source: https://wcsecure.weblink.com.au/pdf/IXR/03088644.pdf
