How This One Part Helps the 2027 Volvo EX60 Reach 400 Miles of Range

Magic wands would change everything. Want to get in shape? No problem. Need your EV to hit 400 miles of range? Do it. Except, of course, it’s not that simple. These things take time, and when it comes to electric cars, the range figure you see is the result of a lot of engineering and design combining to deliver results.

Here’s how that concerns the 2027 Volvo EX60. The Swedish luxury brand’s 400-mile range target for its electric SUV is laudable even if BMW and Mercedes are both prepping similar models.

What we never bothered to consider is how one seemingly simple Volvo decision could have such a positive effect on range. This is no magic wand, however, and the EX60 does look a tiny bit different because of it.

Form vs. Function

Already, we’ve seen how fashion-first choices impact vehicle range. For example, range on the 2026 BMW i5 base model changes from 278 with the biggest wheels to 310 with the smallest.

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Tall taillights define the 2027 EX60’s design, and the same is true for pretty much every other Volvo SUV and wagon.

With Volvo, moving the rear wiper to the bottom of the glass yielded up to 19 miles of additional range in perfect conditions, at speed.

Design details matter, and some SUVs look better without a visible rear wiper—just ask Hyundai, which didn’t even have a rear wiper on the stylish Ioniq 5 when it first came out. Lexus has had a slick, semi-hidden rear wiper on the popular RX for years.

Volvo considered one for the EX60, but doing so would force a restyling of the rear spoiler at the top of the rear glass. And that, in turn, would mess with how smoothly the Volvo slips through the air.

Clearly, things have shifted since the ’70s, when Volvo’s sedan and wagon design led fans to nickname the 140 series “the brick.”

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The EX60’s rear wiper is on the chunkier side, but the overall design is pleasant in a modern, techy, and angular way. The XC60’s design has aged extraordinarily well (with an exposed rear wiper), and one wiper won’t prevent the EX60 from doing the same.

400 Is the New 300

Getting up to 19 miles from the positioning of a wiper or 3–5 miles from a new door handle design are just two ways Volvo stretched to reach an estimated 400 miles of range.

Designing and engineering cars is the collection of 1,000 decisions like this one. Whether the 2027 EX60 resonates with buyers or hits Volvo’s range projections remains to be seen.