Volvo has pulled the plug on the EX40, its compact electric SUV, confirming to Car and Driver that the 2026 model year was the last. The decision lands just as Volvo freshens up the gas-powered XC40, the EX40’s near-identical twin that has been eating its lunch at dealerships for years.
The EX40 nameplate barely had time to settle in. It existed for just two model years, 2025 and 2026, though the vehicle itself had been on sale since 2021 under the XC40 Recharge banner. Four years as a Recharge, two years as an EX40, and now gone. Six years total for a vehicle that never found its audience in sufficient numbers.
The sales disparity between the electric and gas versions tells the whole story. Buyers who walked into Volvo showrooms looking at that compact SUV shape kept choosing the one with an internal combustion engine. Volvo responded accordingly, giving the XC40 another refresh for 2028 while quietly ushering its electric sibling out the door.
On paper, the EX40 was a solid proposition. The base model ran a single rear motor making 248 horsepower. Step up to the Twin Motor variant and you got all-wheel drive with 402 horsepower, enough to make the little Swede genuinely quick.
Car and Driver praised both its luxury appointments and its performance. Being good on paper and being good in the market are two very different things.
Pricing was part of the problem. Compact luxury EVs occupy a brutal segment where buyers can look up to larger, more capable electric SUVs or look sideways at cheaper gas alternatives. The XC40, sitting right next to the EX40 in showrooms with a lower sticker and no range anxiety, was the path of least resistance for most customers.
Volvo is not abandoning the segment entirely. A successor called the EX50 is reportedly in the pipeline, expected to arrive in fall 2027 as a 2028 model. It will ride on Volvo’s newer SPA3 platform, stretch slightly longer and taller than the EX40, and target a starting price around $40,000.
That last number matters. The EX40 was never cheap enough to pull buyers away from its gas twin, and Volvo appears to have learned from that miscalculation.
The cancellation fits a pattern across the industry. Automakers that launched early EVs on adapted platforms are now culling those models as purpose-built replacements arrive. The EX40 was an electrified XC40, sharing its CMA architecture. The EX50 on SPA3 represents the kind of clean-sheet thinking that should yield better range, better packaging, and lower costs.
Still, there is an 18-month gap between the EX40’s death and the EX50’s expected arrival. During that stretch, Volvo’s smallest offering in the U.S. will be the gas XC40, with no electric counterpart. For a brand that once pledged to go fully electric by 2030, then walked that target back, the optics are tough to spin.
The XC40, meanwhile, soldiers on with its latest subtle refresh, unbothered and outselling the electric version right to the very end.
Share this Story