Yahoo Autos The 2025 Volvo EX30 EV Helps Us Learn the Scandinavian Flick
Any hooligan who grew up driving on wintry roads knows a slippery surface is an open invitation to sideways-driving stunts. Some amateurs simply call that pure dumb fun, but more sophisticated drivers see an opportunity to unlock their inner Gunnar Andersson. The Swedish-born rally champion raced Volvos in the '50s and '60s and undoubtedly helped popularize the so-called Scandinavian flick—a multistep trick to slide a car around a corner. Because Volvo isn't the stodgy brand like once perceived, the automaker flew us to its homeland for some fun and to learn the Scandi flick firsthand. Only we wouldn't be wheeling something sporty like a V60 Polestar Engineered. Nope, we'd cosplay as Andersson using the new electric 2025 Volvo EX30.
A Swedish Road Trip
While the EX30s we drove were a mix of Euro-spec and pre-production models, they're essentially what's coming to our side of the pond sometime this year. That is to say a chic-looking hatchback billed as a subcompact SUV with an affordable $36,245 base price and two powertrain configurations. The EX30 Single Motor Extended Range features a 268-hp electric motor that feeds the rear axle; the pricier EX30 Twin Motor Performance has a 422-hp all-wheel-drive setup. Both have a 64.0-kWh lithium-ion battery that, according to Volvo's estimates, should provide up to 275 miles of range.
Since we've already sampled the EX30 siblings in a more everyday environment, we didn't focus much on the EV's mostly smart packaging or the intuitiveness of its vertically oriented 12.3-inch center touchscreen, which is where almost every control and setting is found. Instead, our attention was largely glued to the road, as Volvo had us drive about 60 miles from the city of Luleå (LOO-lee-uh) to a makeshift ice track on a lake called Björnträsket (BYORN-Triscuit, or thereabouts).
The trek wasn't overly treacherous. Our rear-drive EX30 was shod with studded Michelin X-Ice North 4 tires that helped provide sure-footed traction. The only drama occurred when the car's firmly tuned suspension banged the bump stops over several unforeseen dips on the snow-covered back roads. We also anxiously scanned for moving targets based on the numerous reindeer-crossing signs. While one never crossed our path, a couple did come across our table, as Santa's furry friends are a popular dish in northern Scandinavia.
Learning the Scandi Flick
We got to tour Swedish Lapland, one of just seven destinations on Earth where visitors can experience the Arctic. Along with archipelagoes, forests, marshes, and mountains, the region boasts a lot of lakes like the frozen one Volvo turned into a 2.3-mile track with 75 corners. It's the perfect playground for sliding a car around because of the wide-open space and lack of things to crash into. But before we got loose in a gaggle of Vapour Grey and Cloud Blue EX30s, we had to learn about the sacred art of the Scandinavian flick (a.k.a. the pendulum turn).
The maneuver is designed to manipulate momentum to help a car rotate around a corner on a slippery surface. With its multiple steps, it is far from easy. Start by approaching the turn with the car positioned nearer the outside edge of the track. Keep your eyes on the apex, but before the turn-in point, steer away from the corner and lift off the accelerator before quickly turning the wheel back toward the turn and poking the brake pedal, if necessary, to create oversteer. The car's rear end should begin to slide as the nose points toward the apex, but the trick is to countersteer and apply the appropriate accelerator pressure to swing around the corner. Then, of course, it's important to reposition for the next turn and repeat the same steps.
After getting some professional instruction, we headed out of the toasty tepee and into the freezing temperatures and low-visibility conditions on the Björnträsket ice track. We had the chance to drive both the rear- and all-wheel-drive EX30, taking a couple laps in each before swapping cars. Along with a sizable power advantage, the Twin Motor model alone has a Performance All-Wheel Drive mode that locks the front motor for continuous peak power. Without it, the front axle is decoupled and only chips in during hard acceleration or low-traction scenarios. We also turned off one-pedal drive to better dictate brake behavior.
The EX30 Twin Motor seemed easier to flick than the Single Motor when we deactivated the stability-control system via the center screen—it's not fully defeatable—and paired that with the Performance setting. This was mostly due to the Twin Motor's ability to accelerate more quickly between corners and allow more steering angle before the safety nannies reined things in, which was rare compared with our early impressions of the rear-drive model's overly intrusive system.
As it turns out, we were really just doing it wrong. When we properly executed the move, the RWD EX30 provided a more rewarding experience. It just required us getting more momentum going into each corner, as well as a combination of smaller steering angles and lighter accelerator inputs. The result was a slower lap around the ice track but one that felt more satisfying because we worked harder to avoid triggering the ESC's omnipresent safety net while getting the car to slide like we were in a Swedish version of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
Our hooligan side will always recognize that driving on a frozen lake is a recipe for fun—only now we can do it and look like a professional. The new Volvo EX30 wouldn't have been our first pick to learn the Scandi flick, but its simple dynamics were a perfect fit to practice the popular rally-car trick.
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