Owners of some Volvo EX30s built between 2024 and now are being asked not to charge their cars to more than 70% to mitigate the risk of a battery fire.
Volvo has identified a risk of battery cells overheating in Single Motor Extended Range and Twin Motor Performance versions of the EX30, which use a 69kWh pack comprising nickel-managanese-cobalt modules. Cells that overheat can cause a fire that spreads to the rest of the pack, potentially igniting the rest of the car.
Owners have been advised to limit the maximum charge level of their cars’ batteries to 70% because, Volvo told Autocar, “the risk of this rare issue happening is significantly reduced below this level of charge”.
A charge limit can be applied through the charge settings menu in the EX30’s touchscreen infotainment system.
If cells overheat, a warning is displayed on the touchscreen stating: “Danger! Battery overheating. Stop safely now and exit car.”
In a statement, Volvo said the number of such incidents reported so far amounts to 0.02% of all the 33,777 EX30s with that battery built over that timeframe.
The company added that there have been no reports of personal injuries related to the fault and that it plans to bring in the affected cars for remedial work.
“We plan to roll out a recall as soon as possible to fix the cars in question,” Volvo said. “In the meantime, we are contacting all affected owners to ask them to limit their cars’ maximum charge level to 70%. We will contact them again as soon as a fix is available. Other models are not affected by this notice, and not all variants of EX30 are affected.”
The fault is not present in the entry-level version of the EX30, the Single Motor, which employs a different battery entirely – a 49kWh pack using lithium-iron-phosphate chemistry.
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