Volvo EX30 - Rental Experiences
I chose EV Hire car for a week in Northern Norway. I generally prefer EVs, although picking a semi-unknown hire car ("ID.3 or Similar") is a little nerve racking. Northern Norway has a reasonable number of chargers, it seems there was some government funding, as identikit Kople charging booths were located in a number of municipal car parks. However, we generally stuck to private chargers at accommodation or Tesla Superchargers, based on speed, consistency and price.
I generally drive a 2022 Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD (It was purchased in what seems like a different time). I've put 47k miles on the car in the 3.5 years I've owned it, and feel I know how to drive EVs reasonably well at this stage, although my only real experience with other EVs is an EQA we had for the day as a hire car in Germany.
After 45 minutes waiting in line at Hertz, I was "upgraded" from an ID.3 to an EX30 Single Motor Extended Range. I thought I'd make some notes on the EX30, which is remarkably jekyll and hyde.
I'm mostly riffing off Liv's comments after a year of ownership.
The Good
The core drive experience is solid, the car feels well put together, it feels well controlled, performance is good (Sure, the AWD Tesla will beat it on top-trumps, but in the real world I didnt notice the difference) The windscreen wipers work, because Volvo put the right sensors in, rather than making a statement that Cameras + AI will be able to detect rain no problems. (Hint, it doesn't. But carry on believing a man who says he'll deliver self driving cars "Soon")
The mediocre
Charging
Charge speeds are good, plugging in at 15% charger I hit 155kw, dropping down to about 75 as I approached 80%. It's noticably slower than my Tesla, and the price isn't that much lower. In reality, your charge takes 25 minutes, where the model 3 might take 18.
UI
In general, I found the UI to be reasonably intuitive. I found the portrait format to be a more practical option for control than the landscape format on the Tesla (Although worse for entertainment when you're charging/waiting to pick someone up/sitting on a ferry). I liked that most of the (virtual) buttons were well spaced out, and there was no requirements for precision, which is needed for a few actions on the Tesla UI.
That said, there seems to be some weird choices, turning on the headlights required 3 presses and confirmation on the steering wheel (?!?) and the fog lights were similarly located where you would expect, but just too deep in a menu. The Tesla has a lot of little shortcuts like "Press on the headlight icon and it'll pull up a mini-menu for you".
Overall, some configurable buttons would surely not add a huge amount to the overall bill of materials.
Google Automotive
Google Automative was generally good. I found that the system wasn't as good as the Tesla, complaints were
- The estimated battery on arrival seemed be to revised downward as time gets on, initially I was expecting to make it to the next charger with 25% (from 80%), but instead arrived at 15%. This isn't ideal, and the Tesla system tends to be more accurate
- Dead Reckoning through a tunnel didn't work nearly as well
- Loss of GPS tended to confuse the system to the extent that it gave me the wrong directions on a roundabout after a tunnel. It also seemed to randomly decide I was on a minor road far more often, especially if there were high mountains nearby.
- It tended to freak out a bit when the estimated battery on arrival dropped below 10%. I was driving to a resturant on the way home with maybe 15% charge, with the next step being the accomedation with both a private and public charger available. The system decided that I was going to arrive with less than 10% charge, and the most logical thing to do is drive straight to the charger, charge and then drive back to the resturant.
The ugly
One Pedal driving is an option you can enable for drive mode. That's great, except for reverse. So you've got one mode of operation for drive, another mode of operation for reverse. It freaks me out TBH
The drive attention monitoring system absolutely sucks. It's not just that it bings at you every time you pay a little too much attention to the infotainment system which controls everything, it's that it bings every time you aren't looking straight ahead. Road curves to the right? Bing! You're not paying attention! It's annoying and distracting. On the norweigan model I had, the system can be disabled (Two presses and a confirmation dialog), but you have to do so every time you start a driving session. This isn't a legal mandate as far as I'm aware.
The intelligent speed assist function isn't mandated on my 2022 Tesla, but it does detect speed signs and flash the speed icon as a reminder. More recent EU cars will bong at you, but can be disabled by just pressing on the speed limit button. Tesla know the customers hate it, and provide an easy way to disable it. I found speed sign detection on the Volvo was just as iffy as a Tesla. It's also much more insistent, 3 bongs if you go 83 in an 80. If there was some configuration (Bong at me when I'm going 10kph over) I'd likely have used the system more. This can be turned off (Two presses) for the driving session.
Automatic lane keeping. While I didn't use the co-pilot features, the lane keeping safety system was left on. It.. isn't well suited to the tight nature of northern norweigan roads, it oftened seemed to push be away from the edge of the road, only to push me away from the centre line. At one point the system made it difficult to get off the road when an twat in a oncoming campervan went well past the centreline. The Tesla system seems to be more aware of the context, and only seems to invoke when you're being inattentive. This system also needs to be turned off every time you drive.
So in all, that's three safety systems which I find more distracting than useful, and 7 button presses when I get into the car to turn them off.
As a rental, I was given just the credit card RFID card. The door pillar which you need to take gets scratched up real easy, and I reckon you can spot an ex-rental based on wear to this pillar. A frustration is that I don't get app access, and if you want to check how a charge is going, you need to unlock the car and check the screen. Except, that unlocks the charge port too (At least for AC charging), and stops the charging session facepalm. So you've got to either check on the charger side that it's charging OK, or hope?
Other things I missed from the Tesla
The Volvo system doesn't have the number of cameras on the Tesla, side cameras (in particular) are missing. I've become used to these, and find them very helpful (They're clear, they're blindspot free).
In fairness to Volvo
My 2022 Tesla has Ultrasonic distance sensors, which matches the Volvo.
Tesla removed these for a wizzbang AI based system in late 2022, and in 2025 the latest version of the system still doesn't inspire confidence.
And I did mention the automatic windscreen wipers actually work, right?
Out of scope
Northern Norway in the summer isn't the best place to test headlights. It's about 11pm now, and it's still light. The roads in northern norway aren't well suited (IMHO) to autopilot type systems, and I didn't test a system which I judged to be outside of it's design spec
Am I a Tesla fanboy?
I've got mixed feelings on Tesla. They've managed to show that EVs are a practical option, and their ground up design has some genuinely impressive features. But I don't see Tesla as in any way perfect, and competition, innovation and cost reductions are welcome in my book. And let's be honest, Elon is a problem for Tesla
Conclusions
Would I rent one again?
Well, I'd certainly go for an EV rental again in Norway, it wasn't a lot of hassle, it's cleaner, quieter and easier to drive. Would I be delighted if I was handed one again? Probably not, but it's fine for a week
Would I buy one?
My wife has a 10 year old Suzuki Vitara, and when I first saw the specs, it's a very good replacement (Similar size and shape, reasonable range, reasonable charging speed, reasonable price vs competiton at the time, possibility of XC trim). If it wasn't for the software, it would likely be a suitable replacement. But it's a hard pass at current prices given how annoying the system are.
TLDR; it's a Chinese car you're paying Volvo a lot of money to add their expertise to, and they've done a poor job. Better just to buy an MG4, at least it's great value and comes in less boring colours