Volvo’s Tiniest EV Is Low-Key One Of The Coolest Cars On Australian Roads Right Now

There’s a Volvo doing the rounds in Australia and it’s doing something I genuinely didn’t think a Volvo could do: making me look twice in a car park. The EX30 is the Swedish brand’s smallest car, a compact electric hatch that starts under sixty grand, and it’s got absolutely no business being this good-looking.

I’ve been spotting them around Noosa lately and every time one rolls past I find myself doing that thing where you half turn your head and think, “wait, what was that?”

That almost never happens with a Volvo.

Because Volvo has always been a dad brand. Let’s just say it. They made safe cars. Sensible cars. Cars your dentist drove. Car you drove with a sensible hat. The kind of thing you’d see in the school pickup lane in a leafy suburb and think, “good for them.” The old V70 wagon was a staple of upper-middle-class Australian driveways for two decades and it was about as exciting as the people who bought them.

But the EX30 is the car that makes you realise Volvo might actually be a cool brand now. Not “cool for Volvo.” Just cool.

It’s compact, it’s clean, and those Thor’s Hammer headlights give it a face that’s more interesting than anything in its price range. On the road it has a presence that the photos don’t quite capture. There’s a confidence to the proportions that you don’t expect from something this small. Everytime we see it, we think it gets a little cooler.

And here’s where it gets really interesting.

Later this year Volvo is bringing the EX30 Cross Country to Australia, and if the standard car already turns heads, the XC version is going to be something else entirely.

I got a proper look at the Cross Country at the Sydney Electric Car Show and it takes everything that works about the EX30 and dials it up in exactly the right direction. Raised suspension. Chunky wheel arch extensions. Front and rear skid plates. Blacked out trim. And a topographic map of Sweden’s Kebnekaise mountain etched into the front bumper.

That last detail alone is worth the price of admission. It’s the kind of oddball touch that makes you want to get up close and actually inspect the thing. And when you do, the quality of the materials and the thought behind the details is obvious. This isn’t a standard car with some plastic cladding bolted on. It feels like it was designed this way from the start.

The Cross Country is also exactly the kind of car that makes sense in Australia. We love a lifted anything. We love something that looks like it could handle a dirt road even if it mostly just handles the Bunnings car park.

The XC ticks every one of those boxes while also being fully electric, all-wheel-drive, and genuinely quick when you need it to be.

It’s a surf trip car. It’s a dog walk car. It’s a “chuck the girlfriend, the Groodle and a longboard in and drive down the coast for the weekend” car.

The fact that it happens to be a Volvo is the part that catches people off guard.

Inside, it’s modern Scandinavian done properly. A big portrait touchscreen runs everything, a Harman Kardon soundbar sits across the dash, and the Pine interior trim (a muted eucalyptus green with wool blend upholstery) gives the whole cabin this outdoorsy Nordic lodge feel that pairs brilliantly with the rugged exterior.

There’s also an Indigo option made from recycled denim if that’s more your speed. Sitting in one at the show, it felt considered in a way that a lot of EVs in this price range simply don’t.

Are there trade-offs? Sure. The boot is adequate but not cavernous, the interior storage is weirdly stingy for a modern car, and if you’ve got three kids and a pram you’ll want something bigger.

But that’s not what this car is for.

This is for the couple who wants one car that can do the city commute on Monday and a dirt road to a campsite on Friday. It’s for the person who cares about aesthetics but doesn’t want to spend Range Rover money proving it.

What Volvo has quietly figured out is that “premium adventure” is a space barely anyone owns in the EV market.

The EX30 Cross Country sits in a gap nobody else has properly filled. It’s got personality. It’s got a point of view. It’s priced at a point where you don’t need to agonise over it.

Park one of these in Vapour Grey with a roof box and blacked out trim and it just looks right. It looks like the car a photographer drives. Or a vineyard owner in the Yarra Valley. Or someone who lives in Noosa and actually earns a living.

Volvo has never had that kind of energy before.

Volvo won’t sell a million of these. They don’t need to. What the EX30 Cross Country does is change the conversation about the brand. It’s the car that makes someone who’s never considered a Volvo stop and say, “hang on, what’s that?”

And in a market drowning in forgettable electric crossovers, that might be the most valuable thing a car can do.