Electric car range anxiety may be a red herring, because how many people really want to drive 500 miles without a break? But it’s still a psychological barrier to EV adoption. That could be a thing of the past in 2026. The Volvo EX60 has just been launched, boasting up to 503.3 miles of WLTP range, and it’s not the only car arriving this year offering this kind of battery endurance.
Volvo EX60: Enter SPA3
The new car is the first to use Volvo’s SPA3 platform. “It is all new,” says Håkan Samuelsson, CEO and President, Volvo. “It’s very different from SPA2. There is no compromise.” Unlike its predecessor, SPA3 is a pure battery-electric platform, with no option for combustion-powered variants. It also incorporates additional innovations, including mega casting, where one single component is manufactured instead of over 100 bolted together. This saves weight and lowers production costs.
The EX60 is also Volvo’s first car to incorporate cell-to-body batteries, where the pack plays a structural role in the chassis. “The aluminum battery box is bolted underneath the chassis to stiffen up everything so it’s part of the load carrying structure, making it much lighter,” says Samuelsson.
However, this raises concerns about maintenance if the batteries go wrong. “We’re gluing the battery cells together,” says Erik Severinson, Chief Commercial Officer, Volvo. “So you can’t take a cell out of the battery pack. You can, of course, take out the battery pack, but we’re doing one more thing. Typically, when you have quality issues today in a battery pack, it’s connected to the electric components within, not the cells as such.” But the electric components are usually built into the pack together with the cells.
“We have done it differently,” continues Severinson. “We take out all the electronics we can. We just have simple welded bus bars and put them in a box just below the rear seat. So if something breaks on the electronics it’s very easy to access it. You just take away the rear seat, and everything is there. That’s much easier than what it is on today’s vehicles. Then we have a very rigorous quality mechanism in our production process to make sure that whatever we manufacture is quadruple checked before we put it into a battery pack, because that would be a costly experience for us to change.” Volvo’s quality checks have enabled the company to offer a ten-year warranty on the EX60’s batteries for 80% capacity.
Class-Leading Volvo EX60 Electric Range
The headline 503.3-miles range is only available with the top P12 version of the EX60, which sports a huge 117kWh (net) battery capacity and won’t be initially available. The lesser P10 only stretches to 410.1 miles, while the P6 offers 385.3 miles, with 95kWh and 83kWh batteries respectively. However, all three cars use an 800V architecture, giving the P10 and P12 400kW charging, while the P6 offers a still decent 300kW. With the P12, you can add over 200 miles of range in ten minutes with a fast enough DC charger, putting paid to another criticism of EVs – that they take ages to refuel.
A third SPA3 innovation is the HuginCore computing architecture, which will offer “one software stack for all cars in the future, SPA2 and SPA3, and one central compute with zone controllers taking care of the mechatronics,” according to Samuelsson. “It’s a platform for much faster software development and higher scale, because software is a volume business.” Samuelsson argues that the EX60 will be able to benefit from software fixes for the EX30 and EX90, which had a few software issues. “It was a painful process, taking two years to fix that issue. Now we have good software quality and that’s one of the very few carry-over parts from SPA2 to SPA3.”
As the first SPA3 car from Volvo, the EX60 is essential for the company’s future strategy, according to both Severinson and Samuelsson. “It’s massively important,” says Severinson. “This is the most important launch in 10 years, since the XC90. It’s the first Volvo design from the ground up to be only electric with the SPA3 architecture. It’s a car in our biggest segment. I don’t think I can emphasize enough how important it is for the company.”
“It’s probably more important even than when we introduced SPA1,” adds Samuelsson. “Now Volvo needs to enter the premium segment, which I think we succeeded in with SUVs. We are going to be the number one for premium full electric cars. This platform is entirely capable of doing that. If you look at the performance, it’s absolute best in class and cost wise, also margin parity, which I have not heard from anybody else. That is because we have a cell to body and the mega casting.”
Volvo is essentially releasing two cars in one with the EX60, because alongside the standard EX60 will be a higher-riding and ruggedized Cross Country variant for those who want a vehicle with greater offroad capabilities. This will only be available with the all-wheel drive P10 and P12 drivetrains, not the rear-wheel drive P6. Although the EX60 doesn’t mean the end of combustion for Volvo, which will remain available with some other models, there will be no hybrid, plug-in hybrid or range extender version of the EX60 itself. Also, while a station wagon using SPA3 hasn’t been ruled out, there is nothing on the roadmap for now.
How The Volvo EX60 Fills A Gap In The Company’s Range
Up until the arrival of the EX60, Volvo didn’t have an electric offering in the crucial midsize SUV segment, currently still dominated by the Tesla Model Y. Samuelsson sees this as the vehicle that can take the fight to German competitors, against which it has already been faring well with plug-in hybrid drivetrains. But this will be a tough battle, with Chinese alternatives maybe not delivering the same premium experience but offering incredible value, particularly in the crucial UK market.
“If you have my job, you have to love competition,” says Severinson. “But you need to look at your residual values. If you have a strategy where you constantly undercut prices, you are destroying your residual values, meaning that the monthly payments will be super high, regardless how much discount you give. We have a very deliberate pricing strategy. It’s premium, but we also have high residuals, which means that from a monthly payment perspective, it’s not much more expensive to have a Volvo compared to other brands which are discounting much more.”
For this reason, Severinson sees premium German brands – Mercedes, BMW and Audi – as the key competition, as well as the Tesla Model Y, although that is priced lower. With its similar 500-mile WLTP range, however, the BMW iX3 is the most direct alternative. “We have five kilometers more range,” argues Severinson. “I’m glad that our competitors are doing great cars as well because together, we will move people into this segment. People will start thinking about electric vehicles, if there is a wide selection of good products. We are best in class when it comes to attributes such as range. We’re among the top two when it comes to charging speed. What differentiates Volvo is the safety heritage.” With the EX60, Volvo has introduced a multi-adaptive safety belt that adjust to the shape of the seat occupant’s body. “That’s a world first. We do all that at a very competitive and reliable price point.”
Starting at £56,860 ($77,500) in the UK, the Volvo EX60 is definitely a premium option, although this is slightly less than the new BMW iX3. Still, Severinson has high hopes for the EX60’s sales potential. “We have a fantastic conquest opportunity with this car,” he says. “It’s better than what the competition is putting in the market right now. We have best in class range. We have fast charging – 340 kilometers in 10 minutes. We have the price on par with the current plug-in hybrids, and it’s probably the safest car on the market. It’s Volvo safety from ground up, and you don’t get that anywhere else.”
