Inside, it’s a similar story to the design and engineering: the EX60 doesn’t break with the style and philosophy of the EX90, but it’s obvious that Volvo has learned some lessons. It’s still clean and minimalist, so it does appear a little plain at first glance, but actually there’s a fair bit of detail to drink in. The EX60 doesn’t feature wall-to-wall digital screens and is all the better for it. The flowing layers of wood, fabric and leather-like materials give a much homelier atmosphere than any recent Mercedes and the perceived quality is a cut above BMW’s.
There are lots of storage cubbies and shelves to discover and the central glovebox is opened using a mechanical button instead of a touchscreen. More outbreaks of common sense come in the form of four window switches and proper buttons on the steering wheel. Annoyingly, you still adjust the steering wheel and mirrors using the touchscreen and the steering wheel buttons, but Volvo is on the road to recovery here.
While we’re on the topic of screens and wheels, the steering wheel is small and a slightly weird shape (but pleasing enough to hold), because you look over the top of it at the driver’s display. Like in the iX3, the display is set at the end of the dashboard, which works really well, because it reduces the need for your eyes to refocus from the road and makes a head-up display redundant.
Unlike on all Volvos of the past 10 years, the big central touchscreen is in landscape orientation, because Volvo has finally realised that it’s the standard for a good reason: it leaves more space to have permanent controls for the climate and a few shortcuts.
Its software is a development of the EX90’s, working quickly and more logically and giving easy access to the stuff you need frequently. The home screen could do with a bit more configurability, but that’s apparently coming at some point down the line. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto will arrive weeks after launch.
Volvo is quite proud of the Google Gemini AI-powered voice assistant, which works well for finding navigation destinations, chargers and the like but still has some way to go before it can help you with finding the car’s more obscure settings or more complicated queries.
Even more impressive is the spaciousness of the EX60’s interior, both perceived and measurable. Volvo offering light colours and fitting a glass roof as standard helps, and all that structural engineering has paid off in various ways.
To start, the floor (which is literally the top of the battery) feels relatively low, so the seating position in both rows is nice and natural, while the boot is fairly low too, with a big well at the back. And there’s a frunk, albeit not a huge one, of 58 litres.
