Volvo's facelifted EX40 gets cheaper while the petrol XC40 gets dearer

The petrol-to-electric gap in Volvo's compact SUV just fell from 10,400 to 4,500 euros

Volvo's Belgian price list tells this story faster than the press photographs do. The facelifted XC40 B3 now opens at 44,490 euros against 40,450 for the outgoing car, while the electric EX40 P5 starts at 48,990 instead of 50,850. The premium for choosing electric inside the same bodyshell has more than halved in a single model-year change.

Volvo deleted the cheapest XC40, and that is most of the 4,000 euros

Most of the XC40's price rise is a deletion rather than an increase. Volvo has dropped the previous entry version, so the B3 mild hybrid now forms the floor of the range: a 2.0-litre turbocharged four with 163 hp and 265 Nm, backed by 10 kW of electric assistance, front-wheel drive and a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox. The EX40's cut is far smaller in cash terms, around 1,900 euros. The ladder narrowed mainly because the petrol car climbed, not because the electric one collapsed.

The EX40 P5 Long Range covers 575 km and charges at 205 kW

The electric pair keeps its hardware and picks up new badges. The rear-drive P5 makes 238 hp and 420 Nm and reaches 100 km/h in 7.3 seconds. Above it, the P5 Long Range offers 252 hp and an 82 kWh battery, good for 575 km of WLTP range in the EX40 and 584 km in the more slippery EC40, with DC charging peaking at 205 kW and a 10 to 80 percent stop of 28 minutes. The P8 Performance AWD tops the range at 442 hp and 670 Nm.

Everything ahead of the A-pillars is new, and Google Gemini rides along

The restyle covers the bonnet, front wings, bumper and grille, with Matrix LED headlights split into 15 individual segments inside a redrawn Thor's Hammer signature. XC40 and EX40 also gain new rear lights, a reworked tailgate and a new rear bumper, while the EC40 keeps its own tail for recognition. Inside, an 11.2-inch centre screen runs Volvo's newest interface with Google Gemini handling natural-language requests, and the safety hardware moves to a new central computer, higher-resolution cameras and revised radar and ultrasonic sensors, on top of the car-to-car hazard alerts Volvo switched on across its fleet this summer. The plug-in hybrid XC40 is not returning.

America loses the EX40 in 2027, and the EX60 costs 3,250 dollars more

Volvo will end EX40 production for the United States after the 2027 model year, leaving the mild-hybrid XC40 as the only compact Volvo on sale there. The larger EX60 becomes the entry electric SUV at 59,795 dollars including destination, against 56,545 dollars for the outgoing EX40. That follows Volvo pulling the smaller EX30 from the American market earlier this year, so US buyers now begin their electric Volvo shopping a full segment higher than European ones do.

Ghent builds every European 40-series car, and 1.5 million have sold

All European XC40, EX40 and EC40 production stays at Ghent, with local assembly in Malaysia covering Malaysia and Thailand. The line matters more than its age suggests: over 1.5 million have been sold worldwide, the XC40 was Volvo's second best-selling combustion model in 2025 behind the XC60, and the EX40 and EC40 finished second and third among its electric cars. This is the first significant styling change any of them has had.

AutoNext Take

Volvo has not made its electric compact cheap. It has made its petrol one more expensive. Of the 5,900 euro swing between the two entry prices, roughly two-thirds comes from deleting the cheapest XC40 and only one-third from an actual EX40 reduction. That is a price ladder engineered so the electric car looks close, and it will work, because 4,500 euros is inside the range where a Belgian company-car calculation already favours the battery.

The test arrives with the German and Dutch price lists later this year. If this is strategy, the EX40 should start roughly 4 percent lower in those markets too, while the XC40's entry point jumps by nearer 10. If the EX40 lands flat outside Belgium, Volvo has repriced nothing: it has stopped selling the cheap petrol version in Europe in the same month it stopped selling the electric one in America.

Follow us on Google News.

Set AutoNext as your preferred source on Google Discover.