Depending on who you listen to, the new Volvo EX60 is Volvo’s most important, most advanced and most vital car of the company’s modern era. An all-electric mid-size SUV, it slots in alongside the best-selling XC60 and will arrive, with a new EX60 Cross Country model, later this year.
Volvo EX60
It’s crucial for many reasons, not least because it’s the first electrified equivalent of Volvo’s best-selling car of all time, the XC60. The new model sits beneath the flagship EX90 SUV and ES90 saloon and is squarely pitched at the traditional family audience Volvo has courted for years. It’s larger and more practical than the compact EX30 EV and the rather square XC40, which is now the only hangover from the previous generation of Volvo design.
Volvo EX60 Cross Country
This smorgasbord of electrification might imply that Volvo is going all in on its x promise to shun combustion altogether. However, the combustion engine will linger on (in hybrid form) with updates to the XC40, XC60 and XC90 promised in due course. However, there’s another substantial update coming down the pipeline - an overhaul of the code base and HMI of pretty much every Volvo built since the turn of the decade, bringing them up all to the EX60's lofty new benchmark.
Volvo EX60 Cross Country
For in the EX60, tech is placed at the forefront like never before. Volvo was early to the party with Google’s Android Automotive and so it’s also getting an early crack at the full integration of Gemini into its cars, starting with the EX60. Voice recognition has been a thing for decades, with various degrees of success – Mercedes has pretty much refined the art of a car you can talk to, for example.
Volvo has skipped several stages by going straight to an embedded version of Google’s AI, promising real conversational interaction with the car, including the ability to learn specific instructions and preferences.
Other premium elements include an optional 28-speaker Bowers & Wilkins audio system with headrest speakers in all four main seats, as well as having Dolby Atmos-enabled Apple Music pre-installed. Canny readers will note that the combo of Gemini and Apple Music both require separate subscriptions, amping up the requirement that modern tech requires a digital umbilical cord at all times.
The EX60 Cross Country continues the series of elevated, more rugged derivatives that began way back in 1997. In effect, the CC models have replaced the estate car as the standard bearer for the Volvo ethos.
The EX60 and EX60CC look to be a distillation of everything Volvo has been working towards over the past decade or so. The only thing keeping the EX60 from selling like varma kakor is the hot and cold customer attitude to electric cars. Some territories have more of an issue than others, but a headline figure of a 500+ mile range should finally – finally – dispel range anxiety for good.
Volvo EX60 Cross Country
Volvo EX60, available in the UK from September 2026 from £56,850, Volvo.com, @VolvoCars