DAILY: Volvo EX60 Sales Above Expectations, Cupra Raval Looks Ready and Denmark Hits 80% EV | 04 Mar 2026

Welcome back to EV News Daily, today Volvo's EX60 sales above expectations,

Cooper Reval looks ready and Denmark hits 80% EV. Plus stay tuned, later in the show I'll tell

you about a new plan at stopping repairable electric cars from being written off after

minor crashes. Over on EV News China today, with a spin-off podcast we're talking about

trade-ins choose electric Neo ES9 launch and Xiaomi supercar concept.

Let's get into it Volvo make it its 99 year old Tushlander plant near Gothenburg open

for an extra week during the regular annual summer shutdown to meet demand for the all new EX60.

The cars European retail orders have beaten internal forecasts within weeks of its debut

back in January. Sweden alone has generated more than 3000 EX60 orders. Top volume markets beyond

Sweden are Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway and Finland. And bear in mind the US order books

have yet to open a launch penciled in for the spring. Lead times already hint at a supply

squeeze in Germany. The entry level EX60 which starts at 63,000 euros or 53,000 pounds shows

an eight month wait time. The range-topping EX60 all-wheel drive variant which is a 70,000 euro

vehicle costs sorry waits 14 to 17 months. Wow. The chief commercial officer Eric Siverinson said

customer car production has yet to begin in earnest. The company is in active negotiations with

things like labor unions over shortening the holidays. They need more production. Now the

vehicle will be made in Sweden and others have run into the same problem. BMW is having the same

happy issue. They've pulled forward a second shift into its 2 billion euro Debrecen plant in Hungary.

That shift started last month in February with a three shift structure planned because of the

IX3. Now Debrecen can build 150,000 vehicles per year at full tilt. German wait times for the IX3

that's a 70,000 euro vehicle have exceeded 12 months now. It's effectively sold out for this year.

BMW data shows one in three IX buyers are new to the brand. So there you have it the Volvo EX60,

BMW IX3, new Mercedes-Benz, GLC EV. All now loom over Europe's mid-size premium electric SUV segment

and proof like the Volvo CEO Hacken Samuelson predicted when the EX60 was launched that those

cars would pull in a lot of buyers to driving electric. All have massive range, very premium

vehicles, high prices of course and very very popular. Staying with Volvo they've begun an

over-the-air update of the 2.5 million cars to get the new operating system. That is now

rolling out. Android Automotive is the operating system and any Volvo from 2020 onwards with it.

So starting with an XC40 recharge now the rebadged EX40 gets what's called Volvo Car UX. So

basically if you walked into a Volvo showroom and very nice it would be too and bought a

top-of-the-range EX90 for a hundred grand your old six-year-old car would effectively

look the same. A cleaner UI, more consistent experience, updated cars will get the same

experience but with some minor differences because all the hardware can't always match the chipsets

and things like that. Then once it's loaded you'll be able to change from Google Assistant

which is pretty good I have it in the Polestar to Google Gemini which is very good because I used

to pay for Google Gemini but I stopped. I just sort of backed away a little bit from a lot of Google

products last year funnily enough but that's a whole different topic and so I used to pay

it's about 20, 30 quid a month because it came with all the storage that I needed it came with

well just everything and it is very very good but either way that in car will be a revelation

and so when you can dictate messages when you can have a natural human conversation

and it's a to and fro as well it's not having to start the same conversation it remembers

what you're talking about so that's going to be a fascinating experience in car. I still feel

like a bit of a Wally talking to the car when other people are in it by the way so when I'm on

my own I find voice in car even with the existing what's it called Google Assistant very good and

very useful when other people the kids are in the back or something I just feel like a bit of a tool

to be honest with you talking to the car and but there we go right moving on. Cooper's Reval has

surfaced winter testing in Scandinavia with no camouflage so that must mean it's well it's ready

but it's still months ahead of its official launch as far as I know it's a clean look at the Cooper

Reval it's the most affordable car they're going to sell to date sticking close to the concept

which is called Urban Rebel triangular headlights a sweeping roof line and that split sea pillar

treatment looks longer than the concept underneath the platform is the MEB plus described as Vaux

Fagin's next generation entry-level architecture so the other cars coming on this VW ID Polo

VW ID Cross Schodder Epic are all going to be those sub-25,000 cars the battery pack sits under

the floor between the axles single front loaded front mounted motor so that five times quickly

Cooper will launch the Reval with two battery sizes a smaller LFP pack entry level and a larger

NMC pack a Barcelona battery plant the Bolton to say at Smartarelle factory is now operational

and can make up to 300,000 battery packs annually they'll supply the packs for those small cars

which like I say will be sub 25,000 euro car maybe sub 20,000 pound car by the time you have some

UK government grants discounts monthly offers from dealers Renault 5 should be a bit worried

Peugeot E208 MG4 Urban perhaps BYD Dolphin surf Citroen EC3 we got a lot of choice under 25 grand

in this country now Denmark just hit 81.6 per cent Bev share last month hold up where did

Denmark come from we love it yes almost Norway numbers but it gets even better than that

Denmark registered almost 12,000 new passenger cars last month and Bev's were almost 10,000 of them

or 82 percent of the market among private buyers though when you strip out fleets the

numbers incredible amongst private car buyers in Denmark last month 94.4 percent were pure Bev

hang on a minute you're trying to take Norway's crown here Denmark hey you're gonna watch the

Danish Mobility Denmark CEO Mads Rubik said electric cars have moved from being niched now to the

mainstream in Denmark and the rise reflects stronger demand for environmentally friendly

vehicles at Denmark will maintain reduced registration taxes through the course of this

year that's amazing that's 94.4 percent of private buyers wow Denmark that is a number to

shout from the rooftops okay let's talk about the world car awards shortlist came out today

and you won't be surprised to hear electric cars dominate it'll be the 21st running of the world

car awards first of April at the New York Motor Show we get the winners 98 jurors from 33 countries

car secret ballots so it is broadly representative of what car journalists from around the world

think of these cars world car of the year is BMW ix3 one of the finalists also a finalist in that

category Nissan Leaf interesting Nissan Leafs a great car by the way is it one of the three

best cars in the world in the last year

well it's one of the three in the world car of the year awards who knows what happens behind the

scenes uh nothing dodgy of course i had no that sounded like coming out of my mouth but anyway

the world electric vehicle overlaps again BMW ix3 Nissan Leaf almost said he spends

CLA which is very very very very very good that was european car of the year by the way

luxury leans into world car world luxury car finalists Cadillac Vistic Lucid Gravity Volvo

ES90 the saloon world performance car includes the Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray which is hybrid

and the Hyundai Unix 6N which is bonkers world car design of the year includes the Kia PV5

their commercial platform the Volvo ES90 and Mazda's 6E or EZ6 depending on where you buy it

but more proof once again that when it comes to dishing out the gongs electric cars are top of

the charts now BMW's ix4 looks like it's ready it's been spotted winter testing in sweden the ix4

is an overhaul of the x4 keeping a very sleek coupe suv rear roof line very sloped that's

going to be for better for aero than the ix3 using that new ix3 design language all-wheel drive x

drive 40 and x drive 50 interior again you've seen the ix3 this is surely going to look the same

so the ix4 is expected to share the battery with ix3 again 108 kilowatt hour this should be the

same car with a different body style and so that's 621 miles the ix3 did on a single charge last year

and that wasn't highway rated range but it is rated WLTP at 500 miles 800 kilometers even EPA

that's going to be over 400 for the ix4 now let's take a little break we'll come back we'll talk

about electric mopeds and hypercharging in germany stick around back in a mow

all right welcome back to the podcast Barcelona will pay residents and businesses 600 euros 700

dollars to swap a petrol moped for an electric one from now the grant targets electric mopeds

with a top speed of 45 kph or 28 miles now Barcelona city hall setting aside 15 million euros

17.5 million dollars for the scheme through to 2030 and that would fund around 24 000 electric

mopeds the subsidy aims to cover up to 40 percent of the retail cost of a new electric moped riders

must buy a new l1 eb class moped and importantly scrap a dirty old lawn mower engine moped to

clean up the air in Barcelona let's go to germany enb vay has signed a multi-year deal with x

charge they'll be supplying the hardware and software for the hypernet fast charging network

in germany the two-year program they've just been through put 10 of the x charge ultra fast

charges at four enb vay sites enb vay use the trial to check out their performance now they've

signed a deal to roll out dual ccs connectors on 400 kilowatt dc fast charges these are liquid

cooled cables and x charge says the c7 can deliver 600 amps 400 kilowatts they're going

to be in high throughput highway locations stilantis is next in the news they've confirmed

they're going to build the leap motor b10 that's the halfway house at the moment or there's going

to be more leap motors coming so there's the little baby t03 there's the big suv the c10 and

then there's the b10 which sits in the middle of those the battery electric suv will be made in

spain at the stilantis plant in figurellas near Zaragoza the CEO of stilantis saying that they'll

make the b10 in europe alongside other cars coming interesting to see where they'll be made the b05

the a10 and the a5 all-star production next year the a10 in china will be known as the b03x here

don't know why who knows to do with naming and trademarks and things like that but i mean a10

seems okay but anyway over here the b03x the b10 back to the car we were talking about

four and a half meters long it's between the compact and the mid-size segments pricing is

below 30 grand early test drives are good and it's sold by leap motor international which is that

51 joint venture owned by stilantis they've got 800 sales and service points now across europe

and they're entering several new european markets too right finally fachem research has done an

amazing piece of work by the way this is really really important fachem research unveiling their

ev blueprint paper aimed at stopping highly repairable electric cars from being written off

after minor crashes the framework sets out eight design and repair requirements for car makers

for battery suppliers for insurers and for body shops the goal let workshops assess evs safely

repair them efficiently if they can be and keep them economically insurable over their full life

there is no doubt at the moment some evs are written off when they're very repairable i see a lot of

category n which is non-structural and category s which is a structural write-off for sale on

auto trader and there's loads of them and so if you're not in the uk or if you are let me explain

if you make an insurance claim on your ev and the cost to repair it is more than the car is worth in

the insurers eyes and that could be that they think it needs a whole new battery pack just to be

belt and braces sure well if you can't get a new battery pack then you write it off if the cost of

new battery pack is you go to the dealer and it's going to be ten grand you write the car off

and so it then has its title changed so it's either a cat and there's other category right

off so they they can't be resold or they can be scrapped for parts but there's um there's category

n category s so non-structural or structural and some insurers won't touch them so it could put your

insurance premium up that stays with the life of the car you always have to declare it when you

sell the car in the future but it does massively reduce the price of the car because you can if

you want then repair the vehicle or have it repaired safely yourself and then sell it on

maybe you get payout from your insurance company and then off the car goes and so

i've never bought one i know some people do um it's a whole bunch of considerations but

not the end of the world but you see a lot of them in the world of electric vehicles because

insurers keep writing off very repairable evs thatcham says the high voltage pack which is 40

percent of an evs value found 45 percent of insurers and 42 percent of repairers rank battery

issues as the primary concern even light collision damage just means a lot of the time the insurers

tip it into right off territory thatcham linked ev insurance costs to how well the market handles

crash repair one of the reasons why some people find ev insurance is higher for them depending

on the brand that they are going for the eight requirements focus on a resettable emergency

safety loop so any crash triggered isolation systems can be reset rather than forcing replacement

of the pyrotechnic components which sometimes have to be replaced even if they haven't gone off

it calls for safe simplified battery handling for removal and refit without gatekeeping behind

costly oem tools it also wants clear vehicle damage assessment guidelines for judging the

high voltage battery pack post impact available to independent repairers and insurers diagnostics

get a similar treatment the blueprint calls for a high voltage diagnostics the plug into the

tools mirroring obd standard rather than anything proprietary and that pushes tougher physical

protection for battery packs including underbody shields and side structures using like sacrificial

parts if you like when the the packs are being assembled thatcham want strategies that allow

fixing casings brackets and mounts in situ if the battery pack has had one of its mounts

bent or the outside of the case slightly damaged but inside the cells are absolutely fine again

the insurer is more likely not to risk it just ride the vehicle off right a check to the owner

and off it goes to the scrap yard it also argues for serviceable battery designs using modular

construction rather than structural glue or cell to pack technology good luck with that one by the

way because the car makers will not go for it and it wants high voltage components components like

charge ports placed in less exposed areas to avoid a big repair bill from a minor fender bender yeah

i mean depends on where you put the charge point as well but um i always thought about that with

when i had the Renault Zoe had two Renault Zoe's back in the day and it has a charge point right

on the front i find that a very very convenient location under the badge under the Renault badge

by the way um i love it you can just pull into a charge point and whenever the the cable is left

right wherever it would normally reach but i always thought if i do something silly like

going to someone from behind because they go to pull out a junction and they break and you know

these things happen rear enders um or even just something daft that is that that is a very vulnerable

part of a car that well that's what bumpers are for you just take off the broken bumper and you

put a new one on but then if you start messing around with the high voltage stuff anyway and a

lot of other car makers as well tend to put the charge point in an area that could well be damaged

more easily than others so but good work thatchum good work this needs discussing we shouldn't be

writing off evs as much as we are uh is my opinion is my opinion i may be wrong that's your podcast

for today thanks to our premium partners national car charging on the u.s mainland and the loha charge

in hawaii and test ev avalos trusted partner for independent ev battery health testing

in australia and new zealand have a good and see tomorrow and remember there's no such thing as a

self-charging hybrid

DAILY: Volvo EX60 Sales Above Expectations, Cupra Raval Looks Ready and Denmark Hits 80% EV | 04 Mar 2026

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