Volvo EX30 - long-term-review

Uh oh, it’s happening. The machines are waking up. They’ve been quietly observing us, collating reams of data, surreptitiously offering non-threatening digital assistance in the expectation we’ll let our guard down and give over.

Now, comfortable with their dominion, they’ve begun to chip away at more; a chance to claim a new boundary. They’ve discovered… criticism.

Just the other day, Top Gear’s long-term Volvo EX30 decided it wanted to make fun of me. It looked deep into my eyes, read my mind and my emotions as they manifested in my physical appearance and demeanour, searched my soul for essence it could mine, and – because it’s just a machine – made a cold, calculated judgement.

“You look tired,” it said, as cold as an ice pick to the heart. “You should take a break.”

Shocked. Shocked, I tell you. All I’d done was let out a little yawn and, in a heartbeat, the little yellow fun bus’s driver alert monitor woke up and chose sarcasm.

Well yes, EX30, perhaps I look tired but that’s what being old does to you. And a constant, low-level anxiety because of [gestures around] all of this. And it’s not helped by a procession of beeps and bongs and overly sensitive assistance systems and patchy keyless entry. And there’s nothing like a bit of sudden, unexpected braking that’ll age you.

Like when I had to straddle the white line along a quiet single carriageway because of a parked car – having checked my surroundings, and oncoming traffic, and judged everything to be perfectly safe – only to have the EX30 ring out a warning, dab the brakes and yank me back into my lane.

Or when I was patiently waiting at a quiet T-junction, about to turn right as a car from the right was turning into my junction, only for the Volvo to suddenly ring out an alarm that a car was approaching from the right. Yes, I know. I can see it. It too probably needs to get somewhere, Volvo. Chill.

Or when I was trying to unlock it with the keycard, waving it around as though performing some kind of magic ceremony in the hope it’d let me in. Or when I did finally get in, it hooked up to my Bluetooth (fairly quickly, I might add), and blasted my passengers with my embarrassing music choices fairly loudly. No, you like Taylor Swift.

Of course, the EX30 isn’t alone in having a very ‘unique’ personality, because every new car must have some level of neurosis programmed into it. Turning everything off has now become part of my start-up routine. As I suspect it has become yours, too.

Get in, wait for the screen to load, put it in drive (because you can’t turn everything off in park), hold the brakes, press the car icon, then each of the four assistance systems. Two of them even require a further confirmation.

Truth be told, it’s not the end of the world. Yes, the days of turning a key in an ignition barrel, sticking it in first/drive and setting off are quickly becoming the past. And it probably only adds like, a couple of minutes to your journey. Just wish it didn’t make fun of me, is all.

Though, when its hyper-sensitive, lightly mocking personality has been switched off and the road is clear and the mood strikes, well, the EX30 shows up a very different kind of personality. A fun personality. More on that next time…