smart #3 launching this month

Volvo EX30 spotted in Shah Alam – CKD model to be launched in Malaysia soon?
By Woon -Jul 10, 2024 6:57 pm


Well, well, well, what do we have here? The fully-electric Volvo EX30 has just been spotted on a vehicle carrier in Shah Alam today. We’re not quite sure where these cars are headed to, but it being just outside of Volvo Car Manufacturing Malaysia’s local assembly plant could mean that local production of the compact SUV is now underway – and that could also mean that the Volvo EX30 is set to be launched here in Malaysia very soon.

Of course, this isn’t exactly a surprise, given that the model has already previously been confirmed to be launched here – ahead of the EX90 – sometime this year, in line with Volvo Car Malaysia’s (VCM) one-EV-per-year plan.


What might be more of a surprise is that the fully-electric model is set to be locally assembled (CKD) here in Malaysia – although there’s already precedent for this, as the fully-electric C40 is also being manufactured here to serve the wider Southeast Asian market, making VCM one of the first carmaker to locally assemble an EV.

The Volvo EX30, if confirmed to be a CKD model in Malaysia, is also likely to be exported to neighbouring countries, including Thailand, where the compact EV SUV has already been unveiled.

Over in the Land of Smiles, the Volvo EX30 is already available for sale since last year, with three variants on offer starting at THB1.59 million (approx. RM209k).

The two lower-end variants, dubbed the ‘Core’ and ‘Ultra’, both sport a single motor on the rear axle, offering up to 272 hp and 343 Nm of torque for a century sprint time of 5.3 seconds. On the top-end of the line-up is the ‘Ultra Twin Motor Performance’, which gets an additional motor on the front wheels for a total of 428 hp and 543 Nm, resulting in a century sprint time of 3.6 seconds.


All three variants of the Volvo EX30 in Thailand are powered by the same 69 kWh lithium-ion nickel-rich (NCM) battery pack, translating to a WLTP range of 480 km for the Core and Ultra variants, and 460 km for the top-spec Ultra Twin Motor Performance. The all-electric SUV can be charged at a maximum rate of 153 kW DC, which will take 26.5 minutes to juice it up from 10 to 80%, or 11 kW on AC.

Since the Volvo EX30 measures even smaller than the XC40 and C40, could we also see a lower pricing than the fully-electric twins here in Malaysia? For reference, the EX30 is priced some THB400k (approx. RM52k) cheaper than the XC40 (now called EX40) in Thailand…