KUALA LUMPUR, July 2 — The newly revealed Volvo EX30 fully electric SUV will be coming into Malaysia next year. This was confirmed through a recent media interview by paultan.org with the Managing Director of Volvo Car Malaysia (VCM), Charles Frump.

Interestingly enough, Charles also said during the interview that the EX30 will be arriving in Malaysia ahead of its much larger sibling, the EX90. In addition to that, the new SUV will be released here as a CKD model just like the brand’s current electric SUVs, the XC40 Recharge and C40 Recharge.

With a wheelbase of 2650mm, the new EX30 is Volvo’s most compact SUV to date. The new model is essentially slightly bigger than the Hyundai Kona Electric that is currently available in our market, although still smaller than the next-gen Kona Electric that features a wheelbase that is 10mm longer.

For the interior of the EX30, Volvo has decided to adopt a minimalist route similar to Tesla. Instead of having multiple screens, there is only one 12.3-inch central screen that provides all the driving data to the driver while acting as the infotainment centre display at the same time.

With a total power output of 428hp and 543Nm torque, Volvo claimed that the EX30 Twin Motor Performance model could accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in just 3.6 seconds. This apparently makes it the quickest model that Volvo has produced, even beating the Polestar 2 and Polestar 3.

As for the Single Motor variant, the output is much more modest at 272hp alongside a maximum torque of 343Nm. The century sprint timing for the standard version is 5.7 seconds while the Extended Range version is slightly quicker at 5.3 seconds, although regardless of the EX30 variant that you prefer, the top speed has been electronically limited to 180km/h.

The EX30 Single Motor version comes with a 51kWh lithium iron phosphate battery pack that enables it to deliver up to 344 of range, according to the WLTP standards. On the other hand, the Single Motor Extended Range and Twin Motor Performance options, which have WLTP range ratings of 460km and 480km, respectively, are equipped with a 69kWh lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide battery pack.

The Single Motor model also features an onboard 11kW AC charger and takes around 6 hours to be fully charged from 0% to 100%. When plugged into a 134kW DC fast charger, it takes around 26 minutes for the EV’s battery to go from 10% to 80%.

Meanwhile, the Single Extended Range and Twin Motor Performance variants receive a much more powerful onboard 22kW AC charger that allows them to cut off the AC charging time to as low as 4 hours. With a 153kW DC charger, the time taken by these variants to go from 10% to 80% is around 26.5 minutes, according to Volvo.

Aside from being the most compact and quickest Volvo SUV around, the EX30 is also the company’s cheapest fully electric model to date, given its starting price tag of EUR36,000 (~RM183,625). It remains to be seen whether VCM is able to price the new model at around RM200,000 over here but there is a high chance that it will spice up the market if the Swedish marquee is able to pull that off. — SoyaCincau