New EX60 has Volvo on right track

Passenger ride shows Swedish electric SUV is set to make a big impact

- Paul Barker

VOLVO has high hopes for its new EX60, the electric SUV sitting on a clever new platform that contributes to its huge range of up to 503 miles.

Ahead of a first chance to drive it this summer before it hits the UK in September, Auto Express was invited for a passenger ride in a car that, along with the new BMW iX3 and electric Mercedes GLC, will reshape the premium SUV sector this year. The car we're riding in sits in the middle of the three specs. The P10 offers 503bhp and 410 miles of range, sandwiched between the flagship 671bhp and 503-mile range P12 (which is all-wheel drive and gets adaptive damping), and the entry rear-driven P6 with its 369bhp and 385 miles of range, which doesn't. Prices kick off at £58,755, and run up to just over £70,000, a shade below the iX3.

The Hällered Proving Ground, around 50 miles east of Gothenburg, is a sprawling tree-lined remote facility where Volvo has developed cars since the seventies. And the first of three tracks there on which we sampled the EX60 brings together recreations of some of the worst roads the Swedes can find from across the world.

Naturally, the UK features, with a stretch of rutted Broad near Stansted, Essex, laser-copied, along with some sample stretches of Sweden's own nightmare surfacing.

Our pilot is Volvo vehicle dynamics manager Hans Bäckström, who has been working on the EX60 project for the past four years. He told Auto Express that Volvo felt from the off it was on to a winner with the new SPA3 architecture underpinning the car.