Take a minute. I want you to choose a car that can handle a major city, a motorway and a mountain range all within 90 minutes. Parking on a steep hill is non-negotiable. It's 30-plus degrees, so the aircon needs to be exceptional. The sat-nav must be effortless to follow. You'd like to stop somewhere scenic along the way without taking your hands off the wheel. There are two car seats in the back and a tent in the boot. One of the children has fallen asleep, so you need quiet in the back while you lip-sync, silently and with full commitment, to whatever is playing up front.
If you have an answer, I'd genuinely love to hear it, because I was completely stumped until last week, when that exact scenario played out during a test drive of the Volvo EX60 around Barcelona. A test of the car, yes, but also of my ability to navigate rush-hour traffic in the Spanish capital for the first time. Olé! Nervous drivers need not apply. And yet I'd actually use the word enjoyable, even while weaving between taxis, tourists and more cyclists than you'd find at the Tour de France. Because the new fully electric version of Volvo's bestselling XC60 can, as I discovered, handle just about anything. And not just handle—actively assist.
"Hey Google, play summer house hits." "Hey Google, what's the most scenic rest stop along this route?" "Hey Google, re-route us to a coffee shop." The AI-powered voice assistant became my default co-pilot for the day, and an exceptionally good one. A feature rolling out to all Volvos shortly, though the EX60 leads the charge. Hey Google can also control all 28 speakers individually, adjusting the volume in each zone of the car independently. Sleeping babies no longer require total silence. Quite the gamechanger.
Add Apple Music, Spotify, 5G, Waze, Google Maps, Apple CarPlay, a wireless charging pad and every in-car entertainment app worth having—displayed across a central iPad-sized screen and a smaller driver-facing panel—and every element of modern in-car technology is accounted for. All of it housed in a compact SUV small enough to squeeze into a narrow mountain monastery car park—with all-round parking sensors, cameras and a bird's-eye view to assist—yet large enough to comfortably fit two car seats, a passenger in the back and a full camping set-up in the boot. Or, more realistically, the weekly shop, a pram and whatever else needs hauling. The hidden under-boot compartment was a personal highlight: additional space and the kind of security that means the days of hiding a handbag under a rogue blanket are firmly over.
The design is a more minimalist take on the classic Volvo—inspired, lead designer Sara tells me, by "interior design, fashion, craftsmanship and contemporary art and architecture". Available in frost green, ice white, onyx black, heather bronze, aurora silver, sand dune and vapour grey, with four interior options spanning both leather and wool-blend finishes. Sleek is the operative word, if I'm only allowed one.
"The key design features are the aerodynamic exterior design with new door handles, and the airy interior with a lightweight textile dressed dashboard with a curved oled screen," she adds. Noting it was built for modern families in mind. A trait that's easy to spot with the near-never-ending list of mod cons.
Then there's the matter of range—the question that inevitably comes before everything else when it comes to electric. The answer is an 800V battery with a choice of either 660 or 611 km range, with 16 minutes of fast charging adding around 70% charge. Enough to see me through five hours of driving—aircon, music and Hey Google all running at full capacity—with only a marginal drop in battery.
A can-do-anything car, in other words. And one that, rather inconveniently, I now can't stop thinking about (as well as the patatas bravas). Oh, and did I mention you can add the car key to your phone, just like your credit cards? The future of cars is officially here.
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