**A Critical Review of the Volvo XC40 Recharge**

As I put the Volvo XC40 Recharge through its paces, I was struck by its excellent balance and body control. The electric crossover's rear-wheel drive adjustability is particularly impressive, allowing for a driving experience that's both fun and engaging. However, my enthusiasm for this aspect of the car was tempered by the realization that it may not be enough to overcome some of the XC40 Recharge's more significant drawbacks.

One of the most significant issues I encountered during my test drive was the car's compromise on practicality and usability. While the interior is undoubtedly stylish and well-appointed, with features such as the scandinavian-inspired design and advanced infotainment system, it falls short in terms of functionality. For example, the lack of a glove box opening switch is particularly frustrating, requiring me to press a separate button to access my sunglasses or other items stored within.

Furthermore, I was disappointed by the XC40 Recharge's prioritization of driver attention systems over more pressing concerns such as safety and ease of use. While legislation requires manufacturers to implement certain safety features, it seems that Volvo has chosen to implement these systems in a way that can be annoying and intrusive. The automatic eye-tracking system, for instance, can be distracting if it fails to work properly, and I found myself struggling to turn off its alerts when not needed.

In addition, I encountered several other issues with the XC40 Recharge's usability. For example, the heated seats' buttons are buried deep within the infotainment menu, requiring me to take my eyes off the road for an extended period of time. Similarly, the rear door window switch is located in a separate compartment, forcing me to press another button before I can re-activate it.

Despite these drawbacks, I must admit that the Volvo XC40 Recharge does possess some desirable qualities. Its range and value are certainly impressive, making it an attractive option for those seeking an affordable electric crossover. Additionally, the car's interior is well-appointed and finished, with features such as advanced ventilation systems and a high-quality infotainment system.

In conclusion, while the Volvo XC40 Recharge has its charms, I believe that its compromises on practicality and usability outweigh any benefits it may offer. For those seeking a driving experience that's both fun and engaging, there are certainly better options available. However, for those prioritizing value and range above all else, the XC40 Recharge may be worth considering – provided you're willing to overlook some of its more significant drawbacks.

**Additional Recommendations**

If you're looking for alternative vehicles with excellent driving dynamics and practicality, I highly recommend checking out our recent documentary series "Britain's Best Driver's Car". In this series, we investigate the nicest cars to drive that have been launched in the past 12 months. Our recommendations cover a range of categories, from luxury coupes to compact hatchbacks.

In addition to our review of the Volvo XC40 Recharge, you can also find our reviews of other vehicles featured in our documentary series. We'll be publishing several videos featuring these cars over the coming weeks, so be sure to check back for more information.

**Magazine Subscription Offer**

If you're interested in exploring the world of classic motorsports and car culture, I highly recommend checking out The Magazine. With 130 years of archives at your fingertips, you'll have access to a wealth of information on everything from vintage racing cars to modern supercars.

The Magazine offers an exclusive deal for new subscribers: 13 weeks of access to our entire catalog, including a new magazine every week, plus the entire P catalog (128 years worth of magazines). This is an incredible opportunity to explore the world of motorsports and car culture at your own pace. To take advantage of this offer, simply visit The Magazine's website and sign up for a digital subscription.

Thank you for joining me on this review of the Volvo XC40 Recharge. I hope you found our discussion informative and helpful in your search for the perfect vehicle. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel and check back regularly for more reviews and recommendations from the world of motorsports and car culture.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome back to the channel and welcome to the Volvo ex30 which is a Chinese built compact electric crossover you never hear of those these days do you it's quite small it's like 4.2 4.3 M long it is 1.84 M wide excuse my cheat sheet it is 1.55 M High uh it has in this form there's two basically there's two battery sizes you can get a 49 KW battery size or as this is which has got a 64 KW battery size the smaller battery version is only available with a single motor this one you can have with this battery size you can either have with uh 270 horsepower or with this form 422 brake horsepower which means the back motor has 268 brake the front motor has 154 brake the battery is all underneath as you would expect you charge it from back here which is a good place you can charge it at up to 175 kilow but you know what EVs are like that's very much a peak it probably will not hold it especially as you get towards the top end it definitely will not hold it do you want to have a quick look inside these are the back seats this is me getting behind my driving position I am 5'10 that is 176 cm I think in new money I've got a reasonable amount that much headr room I've got that much NE room it's not that generous but this is quite a small car let's also have a look uh tell you actually we'll have a look in the boot it's got some of our stuff in it so we'll pan away right now to an empty version but the boot will hold in this form with all the seats up and the thing be Bob in place it will hold about 3 15 L that can rise up to 900 L when you by the time you've got all the seats folded and the uh luggage cover out the way prices start at £ 33795 on the road in the UK for the base version rising to the very top spec which Pro I think this this is to 44,49489 that's the front windows now if I want to open the rear windows I have to push that little button first which then allows me to do the back windows I don't have separate front and rear window switches if I want to unlock it and and lock it there is a sort of haptic button and there is a proper button up there for the hazards but otherwise I've got stalks steering wheel and everything is on this so let me run you through the touchcreen first up the top here what you get is some of the driving functions so I know I'm in P that will show me the speedometer 2 if I have cruise control activated it will show up there uh it shows what gear I'm in shows my battery level and distance remaining and it shows me sort of trip Stuff Plus the current efficiency the central section is given over at the moment for navigation but it can be given over to other things so if I push the uh settings button that kind of falls into the middle so on and so forth I'll come to the settings in a minute I'm a little bit warm in here but there's no where to just instantly change it if I want to change the temperature I have to push that and then go into there if I want to put a heated seat on well I do to that I mean that's fine while I'm stationary checking to you while I'm driving it's not quite so straightforward and because it has an eye monitor because in 2024 that is a uh EU uh standard piece of legislation that it monitors how much I'm concentrating on the road how much I'm not concentrating on the road mode and it pings up and tells me if I'm not well guess what as you may see when we come for a drive in a minute the more stuff I'm doing on here the less I am looking at the road so the more it tells me I'm not looking at the road and it gets I'm sorry this is a Volvo who put safety and environmental things and conscientiousness first and foremost they limit all their cars to 112 mph and then yet if you want to change the temperature you have to go two buttons into a touch screen I'm sorry that is not good enough we will see that when we go for a drive in a minute but I just want to make it abundantly clear that is not acceptable this stuff down here doesn't move that is fixed uh all the time so it's got some apps on that this is sort of like they call it the app menu so it pulls up a a menu here it includes a glove box button which even when we're stationary I've managed to not hit twice before hitting it just give it a flipping handle it's not that hard is it while I'm on it there's a separate GL box button up there by the way so there's two different ways of opening it if I want to adjust the mirrors I have to go into this and then move it on the steering wheel now if you've been driving for a bit and you Shuffle around in your seat as you might well do and just move around just to get a bit more comfortable and your mirrors are not there in the right place the idea that you have to go into a a separate screen to do that and push these buttons and only then once you're there do you get the idea that you can feel for them it's not good it's not good enough it is not it is not acceptable to make a car like that and it really winds me up it really winds me up manufacturers are starting to back out of this and Volvo are not doing and it's not on um anyway I can turn off speed limit warnings like that there's a one pedal drive mode uh which I can do with this if you want to turn off the eye Monitor and you probably will you have to then go into settings things then go into no don't go into controls go into driving I'm going to need the assistance of Jack behind the camera here was it in there mate or was it somewhere else I genely can't remember or was it in controls was it in was it in controls side mirrors Sensitivity I mean you'll find out which of these is in because you will want to turn it off a lot um what else there was one more that was really going to wind me up about it there was one more thing at these fog light thank you Jack uh yeah that was in was that in driving uh no in like the main vit you go to the car so you got a car and lights in the top left oh there we go lights in the top left then rear fog light on well you know what if it's foggy out and I'm driv do you really want me to go into two touch screens before I can turn on the exterior fog light that is just so beyond acceptable I don't know where to begin it's insert beeps appalling on the steering wheel the left hand side stuff does uh some driver profile things driver mode stuff and the things on the right do the uh media and volume controls and that is an overview of um the cabin there's quite a lot of storage actually there's a there's a charge pad here there's storage underneath there's a little bin underneath the center console which is pretty good and there's quite a big storage cubby in the center which has a lid as well and two USB C's and two decent sized door pockets and also of course there are a couple holders and there are two and you can swivel those backwards and forwards if you don't want to use them all that stuff is very good I mean like the way that swings out and swings back in I like that anyway enough about the interior let's take that ex30 for a drive okay and so to some of my frustrations aside let's concentrate on what this car is like to drive well it's an EV so it's got one reduction gear so it's very smooth there is the one pedal drive mode which means it doesn't creep uh from rest like an old school automatic would do if you turn off one pedal drive it will you just when you take your foot off uh brake and throttle you just touch the throttle once it will it will just creep slowly along it sort of just under walking pace um one p Drive obviously comes to a standstill this is the performance four-wheel drive version but in its regular drive mode which is what I am in at the moment it is rear wheeel drive and it only pitches in when it starts to lose traction um and it thinks you need the four-wheel drive mode and that makes it a more efficient car when it's in this mode I can manually select into four-wheel drive mode and I'll do that in a minute but let's first of all concentrate on what it's like to drive now and the answer is very smooth this is a smooth Road uh there were a couple of bumpy roads earlier well I thought the ride was a little bit unsettled here and there but it's largely okay this car is obviously a bit taller than and not crossover but as is the way with most EVS you know the battery is set low so it has a low center of gravity so it doesn't necessarily have to roll a great deal an engineer did once explain it to me saying that when EVS were first a thing um Engineers looked at their curve weight this car is like 1,800 kilos they thought well that'll need severe anti-roll bars to tie it down and obviously the the thicker the anti-roll bar the more severe the anti-roll bar effectively the less independent suspension is from one side to the other so in some early EVS when you got a bump on one side the anti-roll bar was transferring a bump to the other side as well so they kind of rock down the road like this when they worked out that actually because the center of gravity is so low you don't necessarily need anti-roll bars to prevent roll roll cuz the center of roll and center of gravity is low they could slacken off the anti-roll bars and EES are much more smooth as a result today it was explained to me so that was a rather complicated way of saying most EVS these days ride pretty well this one's all right it's quite short it's quite wide it's it's but it was F it was fine so there are three waiting options on the steering you can have it light medium or firm this is in its lightest mode at the moment and it's very slick it's very it's quite accurate it you know it doesn't get any feel or anything like that but it's you know it's fine it's about 2.6 turns between locks and the Turning circles reasonably tight so it's reasonably quick but it's it's very stable it's tuned for ease of use and that is absolutely fine that is what this thing is all tuned for really um cuz it's relatively short relatively tallish you do get a little bit of lean as you crack on into corners and then just as you sort of come out you get back on the power obviously you get a very quick response because it's electric and it just you can just feel it just sort of you know unw with within the Realms of grip and stability and safety and visibility but just as you get back on the power it just bumps you forwards with a sort of rear bias to the handling to just sort of straighten it on the way out of a Bend not unpleasantly in fact not unpleasantly uh at all now if I may let's go to settings oh no that's turned off settings let's go to settings and uh then the next settings mode and then into driving and then I get so my steering f is on soft let's go to that let's go up to firm and then if I stick it on performance all wheel drive drive and then it prioritizes performance over range and what that means is that the front motor is always engaged rather than only coming in later so when you go into a corner and you come out the other side one you get more acceleration more quickly because that motor is helping so I think the difference between the N to 62 mph time it's like 3.4 seconds or something like that which is M this is a family compact crossover that cost 40 Grand what is it doing going from nor to 62 in 3 and 1/ half seconds which is the sort of speed that a Ferrari F40 could have only dreamt about I mean it's it's bonkers the smart H one the smart one the brius version of that also goes ludicrously quickly from not to 60 and has a dreadful chassis it coping with it yeah so that's steer ing that's ride quality brake pedal feel is all right pretty good it's fine I can't I can't tell the difference when it's going from regen into discs but there will be a moment where you exceed the limit of the regenerative braking and you're into the uh mechanical discs for braking let's turn off performance allhe Drive I wonder if it's actually a bit more fun with it because you get a a more natural rear wheeel drive bias to it and actually I wonder if that being the case the slightly lesser version probably not the the really base version with a small battery but the long range version which has just got one motor at the back the same amount of power as this actually might have the nicest balance of them all I kind of think that about the Porsche tyan that really long range one they do which has only got the rear motor and the big battery still does not to 60 in like 6 seconds or something so it's a quick enough sports Saloon Saloon hatch I think it's a saloon isn't it but it's got a really nice rear drive balance I suspect maybe the halfway ex30 might be the pick of the range in terms of driving fun so after I'd driven this four-wheel drive ex30 I had to go in a single motor long range one and it was great I mean really enjoyable to drive same interior obviously but the car is lighter there's no steering corruption it's got a really great balance terrific body control and nice rear wheeel drive adjustability for me is the pick of the range no question and it does not to 60 in like 5 and a half seconds which is plenty to be getting on with really good fun but are you buying a 30 something th000 electric crossover to get driving fun well no maybe not but it's nice the fact that you can get it and actually given some of my frustration around the rest of this car I am pleased to find that it is relatively enjoyable to drive how do you sum up a car like this cuz it's it's a goodlooking interior I would rather be on that motorcycle I really like these vents they're really really cool it's it's light it's Airy it has that scandy cool thing going on I there's lots to like about that there's an awful lot to like about that but it doesn't have to come or it shouldn't have to come in the way of practicality usability and most importantly safety and ease of use and I think it does and I think it genuinely compromises safety on the road and I have a massive problem with that and we have to separate slightly Volvo's decisions from legislative requirements so the I monitoring which goes off too much there are legislative requirements that say when a driver's eye go to that for more than 3 and a half seconds above 20 kph you have to Ping it up on there to get them back the driver can turn off that system if they want but you have to fit Volvo has to fit that to this car so I have to slightly separate out the fact that it has to fit some of these systems which are annoying and don't work properly but might not be Volvo's for that they don't work properly the legislation requires that that ones that don't suit daily driving work properly that's a problem with EU legislation that's not a problem necessarily for Volvo although there will be different ways that manufacturers implement it I drove a hyai cona the other day I think it I think it was broken because if it was if its driver attention system was working properly that makes the car unrecombined now no glove box opening thing in front of me there's no glove box if I want to open the glove box I now have to push that button and then at the third attempt that button to get my sunglasses out of the out of the glove box it doesn't have to put the heated seats in a menu I don't know if you can see how long I'm looking away from the road for but it doesn't have to do that but it chooses to it doesn't have to put the switches for the mirrors in there it doesn't have to put the rear door window switch that I have to push a separate button before I reenact it again so now I've turned up the heated seat too much when I was just talking to you then that's what I have to do to turn it down all the while looking away from the road in front of me it doesn't have to do that it shouldn't do it I wish it wouldn't do it how much that annoys you compared to how much that annoys me can vary I would not buy this car on the basis of those features if you do and you don't mind them if you never want to change your mirrors while you're driving along so that doesn't bother you fair enough this is quite a nice quite a practical quite a decent ranged quite a decent value very nicely finished uh electric EV crossover anyway thank you for joining me join me again we've got a few videos going up at the moment which are quite good fun I think there's a big unim documentary which may already be out uh Britain's best driver's car in which we investigate the nicest cars to drive that have been launched in the past 12 months there are two vids of those um at the moment they're going up around the same time as I know this is one may be po may be after but I recommend them to you you can find all we do in the magazine which is available print as it has been every week since 1895 and also digitally because you can sign up to a digital archive which includes all of those magazines 128 years worth of magazines as I talk to you there is an offer which means you get 13 weeks access which is a new magazine every week plus the entire P catalog for less than 30 grid and honestly it's a it's like a new hobby having 130 years worth of magazines to read through I just stuff about cars it's so cool it's so searchable it's really good if you go to the magazin shop.com you'll be able to find it all there meantime honestly thanks very much would love it up thumb and subscribe and all that malaky see you next timehello welcome back to the channel and welcome to the Volvo ex30 which is a Chinese built compact electric crossover you never hear of those these days do you it's quite small it's like 4.2 4.3 M long it is 1.84 M wide excuse my cheat sheet it is 1.55 M High uh it has in this form there's two basically there's two battery sizes you can get a 49 KW battery size or as this is which has got a 64 KW battery size the smaller battery version is only available with a single motor this one you can have with this battery size you can either have with uh 270 horsepower or with this form 422 brake horsepower which means the back motor has 268 brake the front motor has 154 brake the battery is all underneath as you would expect you charge it from back here which is a good place you can charge it at up to 175 kilow but you know what EVs are like that's very much a peak it probably will not hold it especially as you get towards the top end it definitely will not hold it do you want to have a quick look inside these are the back seats this is me getting behind my driving position I am 5'10 that is 176 cm I think in new money I've got a reasonable amount that much headr room I've got that much NE room it's not that generous but this is quite a small car let's also have a look uh tell you actually we'll have a look in the boot it's got some of our stuff in it so we'll pan away right now to an empty version but the boot will hold in this form with all the seats up and the thing be Bob in place it will hold about 3 15 L that can rise up to 900 L when you by the time you've got all the seats folded and the uh luggage cover out the way prices start at £ 33795 on the road in the UK for the base version rising to the very top spec which Pro I think this this is to 44,49489 that's the front windows now if I want to open the rear windows I have to push that little button first which then allows me to do the back windows I don't have separate front and rear window switches if I want to unlock it and and lock it there is a sort of haptic button and there is a proper button up there for the hazards but otherwise I've got stalks steering wheel and everything is on this so let me run you through the touchcreen first up the top here what you get is some of the driving functions so I know I'm in P that will show me the speedometer 2 if I have cruise control activated it will show up there uh it shows what gear I'm in shows my battery level and distance remaining and it shows me sort of trip Stuff Plus the current efficiency the central section is given over at the moment for navigation but it can be given over to other things so if I push the uh settings button that kind of falls into the middle so on and so forth I'll come to the settings in a minute I'm a little bit warm in here but there's no where to just instantly change it if I want to change the temperature I have to push that and then go into there if I want to put a heated seat on well I do to that I mean that's fine while I'm stationary checking to you while I'm driving it's not quite so straightforward and because it has an eye monitor because in 2024 that is a uh EU uh standard piece of legislation that it monitors how much I'm concentrating on the road how much I'm not concentrating on the road mode and it pings up and tells me if I'm not well guess what as you may see when we come for a drive in a minute the more stuff I'm doing on here the less I am looking at the road so the more it tells me I'm not looking at the road and it gets I'm sorry this is a Volvo who put safety and environmental things and conscientiousness first and foremost they limit all their cars to 112 mph and then yet if you want to change the temperature you have to go two buttons into a touch screen I'm sorry that is not good enough we will see that when we go for a drive in a minute but I just want to make it abundantly clear that is not acceptable this stuff down here doesn't move that is fixed uh all the time so it's got some apps on that this is sort of like they call it the app menu so it pulls up a a menu here it includes a glove box button which even when we're stationary I've managed to not hit twice before hitting it just give it a flipping handle it's not that hard is it while I'm on it there's a separate GL box button up there by the way so there's two different ways of opening it if I want to adjust the mirrors I have to go into this and then move it on the steering wheel now if you've been driving for a bit and you Shuffle around in your seat as you might well do and just move around just to get a bit more comfortable and your mirrors are not there in the right place the idea that you have to go into a a separate screen to do that and push these buttons and only then once you're there do you get the idea that you can feel for them it's not good it's not good enough it is not it is not acceptable to make a car like that and it really winds me up it really winds me up manufacturers are starting to back out of this and Volvo are not doing and it's not on um anyway I can turn off speed limit warnings like that there's a one pedal drive mode uh which I can do with this if you want to turn off the eye Monitor and you probably will you have to then go into settings things then go into no don't go into controls go into driving I'm going to need the assistance of Jack behind the camera here was it in there mate or was it somewhere else I genely can't remember or was it in controls was it in was it in controls side mirrors Sensitivity I mean you'll find out which of these is in because you will want to turn it off a lot um what else there was one more that was really going to wind me up about it there was one more thing at these fog light thank you Jack uh yeah that was in was that in driving uh no in like the main vit you go to the car so you got a car and lights in the top left oh there we go lights in the top left then rear fog light on well you know what if it's foggy out and I'm driv do you really want me to go into two touch screens before I can turn on the exterior fog light that is just so beyond acceptable I don't know where to begin it's insert beeps appalling on the steering wheel the left hand side stuff does uh some driver profile things driver mode stuff and the things on the right do the uh media and volume controls and that is an overview of um the cabin there's quite a lot of storage actually there's a there's a charge pad here there's storage underneath there's a little bin underneath the center console which is pretty good and there's quite a big storage cubby in the center which has a lid as well and two USB C's and two decent sized door pockets and also of course there are a couple holders and there are two and you can swivel those backwards and forwards if you don't want to use them all that stuff is very good I mean like the way that swings out and swings back in I like that anyway enough about the interior let's take that ex30 for a drive okay and so to some of my frustrations aside let's concentrate on what this car is like to drive well it's an EV so it's got one reduction gear so it's very smooth there is the one pedal drive mode which means it doesn't creep uh from rest like an old school automatic would do if you turn off one pedal drive it will you just when you take your foot off uh brake and throttle you just touch the throttle once it will it will just creep slowly along it sort of just under walking pace um one p Drive obviously comes to a standstill this is the performance four-wheel drive version but in its regular drive mode which is what I am in at the moment it is rear wheeel drive and it only pitches in when it starts to lose traction um and it thinks you need the four-wheel drive mode and that makes it a more efficient car when it's in this mode I can manually select into four-wheel drive mode and I'll do that in a minute but let's first of all concentrate on what it's like to drive now and the answer is very smooth this is a smooth Road uh there were a couple of bumpy roads earlier well I thought the ride was a little bit unsettled here and there but it's largely okay this car is obviously a bit taller than and not crossover but as is the way with most EVS you know the battery is set low so it has a low center of gravity so it doesn't necessarily have to roll a great deal an engineer did once explain it to me saying that when EVS were first a thing um Engineers looked at their curve weight this car is like 1,800 kilos they thought well that'll need severe anti-roll bars to tie it down and obviously the the thicker the anti-roll bar the more severe the anti-roll bar effectively the less independent suspension is from one side to the other so in some early EVS when you got a bump on one side the anti-roll bar was transferring a bump to the other side as well so they kind of rock down the road like this when they worked out that actually because the center of gravity is so low you don't necessarily need anti-roll bars to prevent roll roll cuz the center of roll and center of gravity is low they could slacken off the anti-roll bars and EES are much more smooth as a result today it was explained to me so that was a rather complicated way of saying most EVS these days ride pretty well this one's all right it's quite short it's quite wide it's it's but it was F it was fine so there are three waiting options on the steering you can have it light medium or firm this is in its lightest mode at the moment and it's very slick it's very it's quite accurate it you know it doesn't get any feel or anything like that but it's you know it's fine it's about 2.6 turns between locks and the Turning circles reasonably tight so it's reasonably quick but it's it's very stable it's tuned for ease of use and that is absolutely fine that is what this thing is all tuned for really um cuz it's relatively short relatively tallish you do get a little bit of lean as you crack on into corners and then just as you sort of come out you get back on the power obviously you get a very quick response because it's electric and it just you can just feel it just sort of you know unw with within the Realms of grip and stability and safety and visibility but just as you get back on the power it just bumps you forwards with a sort of rear bias to the handling to just sort of straighten it on the way out of a Bend not unpleasantly in fact not unpleasantly uh at all now if I may let's go to settings oh no that's turned off settings let's go to settings and uh then the next settings mode and then into driving and then I get so my steering f is on soft let's go to that let's go up to firm and then if I stick it on performance all wheel drive drive and then it prioritizes performance over range and what that means is that the front motor is always engaged rather than only coming in later so when you go into a corner and you come out the other side one you get more acceleration more quickly because that motor is helping so I think the difference between the N to 62 mph time it's like 3.4 seconds or something like that which is M this is a family compact crossover that cost 40 Grand what is it doing going from nor to 62 in 3 and 1/ half seconds which is the sort of speed that a Ferrari F40 could have only dreamt about I mean it's it's bonkers the smart H one the smart one the brius version of that also goes ludicrously quickly from not to 60 and has a dreadful chassis it coping with it yeah so that's steer ing that's ride quality brake pedal feel is all right pretty good it's fine I can't I can't tell the difference when it's going from regen into discs but there will be a moment where you exceed the limit of the regenerative braking and you're into the uh mechanical discs for braking let's turn off performance allhe Drive I wonder if it's actually a bit more fun with it because you get a a more natural rear wheeel drive bias to it and actually I wonder if that being the case the slightly lesser version probably not the the really base version with a small battery but the long range version which has just got one motor at the back the same amount of power as this actually might have the nicest balance of them all I kind of think that about the Porsche tyan that really long range one they do which has only got the rear motor and the big battery still does not to 60 in like 6 seconds or something so it's a quick enough sports Saloon Saloon hatch I think it's a saloon isn't it but it's got a really nice rear drive balance I suspect maybe the halfway ex30 might be the pick of the range in terms of driving fun so after I'd driven this four-wheel drive ex30 I had to go in a single motor long range one and it was great I mean really enjoyable to drive same interior obviously but the car is lighter there's no steering corruption it's got a really great balance terrific body control and nice rear wheeel drive adjustability for me is the pick of the range no question and it does not to 60 in like 5 and a half seconds which is plenty to be getting on with really good fun but are you buying a 30 something th000 electric crossover to get driving fun well no maybe not but it's nice the fact that you can get it and actually given some of my frustration around the rest of this car I am pleased to find that it is relatively enjoyable to drive how do you sum up a car like this cuz it's it's a goodlooking interior I would rather be on that motorcycle I really like these vents they're really really cool it's it's light it's Airy it has that scandy cool thing going on I there's lots to like about that there's an awful lot to like about that but it doesn't have to come or it shouldn't have to come in the way of practicality usability and most importantly safety and ease of use and I think it does and I think it genuinely compromises safety on the road and I have a massive problem with that and we have to separate slightly Volvo's decisions from legislative requirements so the I monitoring which goes off too much there are legislative requirements that say when a driver's eye go to that for more than 3 and a half seconds above 20 kph you have to Ping it up on there to get them back the driver can turn off that system if they want but you have to fit Volvo has to fit that to this car so I have to slightly separate out the fact that it has to fit some of these systems which are annoying and don't work properly but might not be Volvo's for that they don't work properly the legislation requires that that ones that don't suit daily driving work properly that's a problem with EU legislation that's not a problem necessarily for Volvo although there will be different ways that manufacturers implement it I drove a hyai cona the other day I think it I think it was broken because if it was if its driver attention system was working properly that makes the car unrecombined now no glove box opening thing in front of me there's no glove box if I want to open the glove box I now have to push that button and then at the third attempt that button to get my sunglasses out of the out of the glove box it doesn't have to put the heated seats in a menu I don't know if you can see how long I'm looking away from the road for but it doesn't have to do that but it chooses to it doesn't have to put the switches for the mirrors in there it doesn't have to put the rear door window switch that I have to push a separate button before I reenact it again so now I've turned up the heated seat too much when I was just talking to you then that's what I have to do to turn it down all the while looking away from the road in front of me it doesn't have to do that it shouldn't do it I wish it wouldn't do it how much that annoys you compared to how much that annoys me can vary I would not buy this car on the basis of those features if you do and you don't mind them if you never want to change your mirrors while you're driving along so that doesn't bother you fair enough this is quite a nice quite a practical quite a decent ranged quite a decent value very nicely finished uh electric EV crossover anyway thank you for joining me join me again we've got a few videos going up at the moment which are quite good fun I think there's a big unim documentary which may already be out uh Britain's best driver's car in which we investigate the nicest cars to drive that have been launched in the past 12 months there are two vids of those um at the moment they're going up around the same time as I know this is one may be po may be after but I recommend them to you you can find all we do in the magazine which is available print as it has been every week since 1895 and also digitally because you can sign up to a digital archive which includes all of those magazines 128 years worth of magazines as I talk to you there is an offer which means you get 13 weeks access which is a new magazine every week plus the entire P catalog for less than 30 grid and honestly it's a it's like a new hobby having 130 years worth of magazines to read through I just stuff about cars it's so cool it's so searchable it's really good if you go to the magazin shop.com you'll be able to find it all there meantime honestly thanks very much would love it up thumb and subscribe and all that malaky see you next time\n"