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There’s a lot of dichotomy in that title. But for some reason, it all makes sense when driving the Volvo EX30. After delaying the much bigger EX90 indefinitely, Volvo’s first EV designed from the ground up really shines in so many areas, and of course has one big glaring downside…

Let’s get those eye-watering specs out of the way first.

  • Horsepower: 268 RWD/422 AWD
  • Torque: 253ftlbs RWD/ 400ftlbs AWD
  • Top speed: 112mph
  • Battery: 69kWh
  • Range: 265/275 miles
  • Towing: 2000lbs/2500lbs
  • Dimensions: Height: 61.2in, Width: 72.3in, Length: 166.7in
  • Base price: $34,950FWD/$44,900 AWD
  • Some more interior dimensions

For those in the US, the size of the Volvo EX30 is about halfway between a Chevy Bolt EV and the 6-inch longer EUV. While Chevy initially tried to call the Bolt a “Micro-SUV”, I think the EX30 with its 7-inch ground clearance and much larger wheels better fits that description. Taking it off-road later cemented that role.

Interior

Maybe the most impressive aspect of the EX30 is the interior design. Clearly Scandinavian-inspired, there’s not a single item that hasn’t been thought over for simplicity or efficiency and so many smart decisions were made here. Volvo took the window buttons and speakers out of the door to simplify. Instead, all of this lies in the center of the vehicle.

The roomy and convenient glovebox is also in the center which leaves a nice open, airy space for the passenger. (By the way, the front trunk or ‘frunk’ isn’t much bigger than a glovebox and will likely be used as a space to store valuables and perhaps charging cables)

The armrests on the door feel like they are floating, while below there is tons of room for storage. The door handles are made of a solid metal material that feels high quality. The seats are firm but comfortable but not in a ‘La-z-boy’ type of smushy way.

The center console is no different. Drawers and cupholders are well-designed and seem to come out of nowhere. USB-C and wireless chargers are both easy to access.

The center stack is running on Google’s Automotive OS but it will still take Carplay or Android projection from your phones. The software wasn’t quite complete at testing but it was similar to Volvo and Polestar’s other offerings albeit with a display that felt a little smaller and cheaper.

Exterior

Volvo, I think, also hit it out of the park with the look shape of the EX30. It looks a lot like its bigger XC40 cousin but also a little more modern and sculpted with more futuristic lights and aero wheels.

We drove a white AWD version and a Gray RWD version but the light blue and moss yellow varieties will turn more heads. I think Volvo could really have some fun with more colorful options here, perhaps taking a cue from apple’s iPads and iMacs for fun inspiration.

The charging port in the driver’s side rear has those little stringed covers that you see in cars that are designed by people who have never had to charge a car. I’d rip those off on day one.

The Drive

Given all the hype around the EX30, I was worried that the drive would feel cheap or sedated or…boring.

Nope! it is so fun to drive and maybe more importantly, it gets out of your way when you just want to get from point A to point B.

The car was also pretty good at sipping electrons, though we didn’t do any scientific testing since we were also trying to push it to its limits off-road and on. Overall, I think that the 265-275 mile range is certainly achievable and perhaps more with some miserly driving.

Volvo says you can charge from 10% to 80% or add almost 200 miles in 26 minutes at the right chargers which the above was not.

Charging is typical with about 150kW CCS combo but Volvo will switch to Tesla’s NACS charger as early as mid-cycle 2024 and will provide adapters for all vehicles in both directions.

Also, we’re happy to report that the EX30 does fine off the road, as we took some scenic detours through some forests and wineries. We found some mud, some hills, and just some beautiful mountain dirt roads to drive on. The EX30 felt right at home here. The 7-inch drive clearance and solid suspension were certainly helpful in crossing ditches and those relatively big tires did well on tight turns. That said, the turning radius felt like that of a bigger vehicle.

One note that though all Volvos are governed at under 118 miles per hour, our AWD EX30 version started getting a little shaky at about 95 miles per hour. Other than that, it drove incredibly solid for a low-priced car.

Also, I do want to report that the lower-end rear-wheel drive version felt really fast and was perhaps more fun to drive than the more powerful AWD variety. If you don’t live where it snows a lot I’d recommend the RWD version or at least test-driving it and perhaps save yourself $10K

Overall Pros:

  • Amazing price/performance
  • Size is short but still roomy and nimble
  • Efficient and beautiful inside and out
  • Great sound system, lots of storage space

Cons:

  • Built in China, though Volvo says they are spinning up an EU assembly line. No US manufacturing announced but Volvo says it would take 18 months to do so.
  • The center screen is small and sometimes hard to read while driving
  • Rear space is small without a center armrest, rear windows hard to roll down from front

Electrek’s Take

I love almost everything about this car and I fully expect to replace my Chevy Bolt with it in a few years. It drives excellently both fast and off-road, it is the perfect size and it is beautiful inside and out. I have some gripes outlined above (rear armrest, center screen, etc) but nothing physical that would deter me from recommending this car.

My biggest beef is that Volvo isn’t building this locally for the US market and is instead outsourcing it to its sister company Geely in China. That also means it might get hit with a 27% tariff coming in and of course, wouldn’t qualify for the $7500 Federal tax credit unless leased. Volvo was cagey about whether they were on the hook for the 27% US tariff on Chinese-made cars or if they would in fact make a profit on these vehicles sold in the US. That means they might prioritize other markets and only trickle these into the US.

As it stands, this would be the first mass-market Chinese vehicle sold in the US and perhaps a Trojan horse with its beautiful Scandinavian Volvo-clad covering. Smaller selling Chinese vehicles like the Polestar 2 are already sold in the US.

That would be a real shame because this is a truly special car. I don’t understand why they don’t spool up their South Carolina factory to make these as soon as possible (18 months according to Volvo). Even if they can’t make them as cheaply as in China, with all of the incentives it feels like a no-brainer.

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BP profit falls sharply but CEO says oil major ‘off to a great start’ in strategy reset

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BP profit falls sharply but CEO says oil major 'off to a great start' in strategy reset

British oil and gasoline company BP (British Petroleum) signage is being pictured in Warsaw, Poland, on July 29, 2024.

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British oil giant BP on Tuesday posted slightly weaker-than-expected first-quarter net profit, following a recent strategic reset and a slump in crude prices.

The beleaguered oil and gas major posted underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, of $1.38 billion for the first three months of the year. That missed analyst expectations of $1.6 billion, according to an LSEG-compiled consensus.

BP’s net profit had hit $2.7 billion a year earlier and $1.2 billion in the final three months of 2024.

The results come as the energy major faces fresh pressure from activist investors less than two months after announcing a strategic reset.

Seeking to rebuild investor confidence, BP in February pledged to slash renewable spending and boost annual expenditure on its core business of oil and gas.

BP CEO Murray Auchincloss told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Tuesday that the firm was “off to a great start” in delivering on its strategic reset.

BP CEO Murray Auchincloss discusses first-quarter results

“We had a great operational quarter. We had our highest upstream operating efficiency in history. Our refineries in the first quarter ran at the best they’ve run in 24 years. We had six exploration discoveries in a row, which is really unusual and we started out three major projects,” Auchincloss said.

For the first quarter, BP announced a dividend per ordinary share of 8 cents and a share buyback of $750 million.

Net debt rose to $26.97 billion in the January-March period, up from $22.99 billion at the end of the fourth quarter. BP had previously warned of lower reported upstream production and higher net debt in the first quarter, when compared to the final three months of last year.

Shares of BP fell 3.3% on Tuesday morning. The firm is down roughly 8% year-to-date.

Activist pressure

BP’s green strategy U-turn does not appear to have gone far enough for the likes of activist investor Elliott Management, which went public last week with a stake of more than 5% in the London-listed firm.

The disclosure makes the U.S. hedge fund BP’s second-largest shareholder after BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, according to LSEG data.

Elliott was first reported to have assumed a position in the oil and gas company back in February, driving a share price rally amid expectations that its involvement could pressure BP to shift gears back toward its oil and gas businesses.

BP’s Auchincloss declined to comment on interactions with investors when asked whether the firm was under pressure from the likes of Elliott to go beyond the plans announced in its February pivot.

Notably, BP suffered a shareholder rebellion at its annual general meeting earlier this month. Almost a quarter (24.3%) of investors voted against the re-election of outgoing Chair Helge Lund, a symbolic result that reflected a sense of deep frustration among the firm’s shareholders.

Mark van Baal, founder of Dutch activist investor Follow This, told CNBC last week that he hoped the shareholder revolt means Amanda Blanc, who is leading the process to find Lund’s successor, will look for a new chair who is “climate competent” and “will not respond to short-term activists so quickly.”

Lund is expected to step down from his role next year.

Takeover candidate

BP’s underperformance relative to industry peers such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Shell has thrust the energy major into the spotlight as a prime takeover candidate. Energy analysts have questioned, however, whether any of the likeliest suitors will rise to the occasion.

BP’s Auchincloss on Tuesday said that he wouldn’t speculate on whether the company is a takeover target, but confirmed the oil major had not asked for any sort of protection from the British government.

“What I will say is we’re a strong, independent company and we’ve got sector-leading growth. And if we can deliver the sector-leading growth, and the first quarter is a fantastic example of that, then I have no concerns. I think we’re going to do great,” Auchincloss said.

Murray Auchincloss, chief executive officer of BP, during the “CERAWeek by S&P Global” conference in Houston, Texas, on March 11, 2025.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Oil prices have fallen in recent months on demand fears. International benchmark Brent crude futures with June delivery traded at $65.19 per barrel on Tuesday morning, down more than 1% for the session. That’s lower from around $84 per barrel a year ago.

Asked whether weaker crude prices could put the some of the firm’s reset plans in jeopardy, Auchincloss said, “Not really. We have a balance of products that we think about that generate revenue for us. So, oil, natural gas and refined products as well.”

— CNBC’s Ruxandra Iordache contributed to this report.

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The first giant 15 MW turbine is up at Germany’s largest offshore wind farm

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The first giant 15 MW turbine is up at Germany’s largest offshore wind farm

Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.

He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.

When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.

EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.

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The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.

He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.

The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.

A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.

Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build


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Tesla gives update on Tesla Semi factory, says on track for volume production in 2026

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Tesla gives update on Tesla Semi factory, says on track for volume production in 2026

Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.

The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.

Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.

For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.

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Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:

Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.

The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.

We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”

They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.

When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.

However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.

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