Within a day of arriving in Orust, on the western coast of Sweden, two hours’ drive north of Volvo’s home base in Gothenburg, I’m standing barefoot with leaves and twigs between my toes in the forest of Himlabacken, drawing deep breaths through my nose and out of my mouth, and embracing a beech tree’s smooth trunk. Just 18 hours after touching down at Gothenburg-Landvetter Airport, I’m hugging a tree. Not something I’d anticipated, but here we are. Tack, Volvo.
A view of a pier from the bluff above Bryggvingen
Nick Savage
Frida Hedberg, a long-time flow yoga instructor, explains the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing”. Popularised in the 1980s, it involves immersing yourself in nature through mindfulness and meditation – less of an exercise like hiking, and more about untethering oneself from the stressors of the modern world and allowing natural settings to encourage feelings of wellbeing. “Feel the protection of the trees and their canopy,” says Hedberg. “It’s good for the parasympathetic nervous system, and studies have shown that it boosts your immune system.”
Prevoteaux reveals that this ecosystem directly inspired the new colourway
Since arriving in the country, I’ve been in the company of Maxime Prevoteaux, senior exterior designer for Volvo Cars, who relocated from the Champagne region of France to Gothenburg in 2016. “Safety has always been very important for us; it’s a central part of our design language. And there’s a legacy of this, such as in 1959, when Volvo created the three-point seatbelt and shared the patent with other companies.”
From the vantage point of a hammock, I gaze upwards as the beech trees fan out into softly swaying crowns and do indeed feel protected. As the wind susurrates through the leaves and the sunlight splinters down between the branches, the effect is almost like being underwater. Prevoteaux explains that this type of ecosystem directly inspired the new colourway for Volvo’s bestselling car, the XC60 – appropriately named Forest Lake.
The ecosystem directly inspired the new colourway
When I ask Prevoteaux whether his outsider perspective gave him a different lens through which to appreciate Sweden’s nature, he cites how struck he was upon moving to the country by its concept of allemansrätten – a unique principle enshrined in Swedish law and cultural tradition that grants everyone the freedom to access and enjoy nature, regardless of ownership. “The XC line follows the same principle. With more ground clearance and a rugged design, it’s all about providing full access to nature.”
He also observed the Swedish relationship with light: “Light is a big factor, especially in a place where winter is long. You start to see it very differently. As soon as the sun comes up again, everyone’s outside, and the atmosphere completely shifts. The intensity of the light changes everything. It’s not something I’d really experienced before, and I think that emotional impact is something I try to translate into physical design.”
In less than fifteen minutes, I’ve witnessed two of the five interior ambience light themes
It’s impossible to ignore the quality of light at midsummer in Sweden. The sun sets after 10pm during the summer solstice, and the evening offers an odyssey through the spectrum. I drive the XC60 through bright green meadows stippled with wildflowers and past vertical-panelled barns painted in Falun red – a mineral-rich pigment derived from local copper mines – to the ferry crossing at Ramsbult, where big sweeping shoulders of gneiss blush pink and lime-green lichen stands out like pop-art pointillism.
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt safer in a car. Everything from the all-wheel drive and intuitive steering to the comfort-first suspension and regenerative braking makes the ride smoother than butter. I’m particularly smitten with a feature on the wing mirrors that lights up when another vehicle is overtaking, so that you wouldn’t risk pulling out accidentally. I feather the pedal to ease the car onto a mustard-yellow ferry which crosses the strait to the small isle of Lyr. After navigating through more piercingly beautiful fields and forests, I arrive at Restaurant Bryggvingen, which is about as Instagram-filter-friendly as it gets.
The Volvo EX30 Cross Country
Dinner is served al fresco on a terrace of unfinished wood that is cantilevered over the face of a cliff on a tiny, narrow inlet, so that you feel as if you’re suspended mid-air. Even though it's midsummer, the ocean wind whips across the building and rattles the awnings, and many diners opt to swaddle themselves in thick blankets offered by the staff. There’s a seafood shop on-site, and I’m treated to briny fresh oysters, gratinated langoustine, and moules frites with aioli and freshly baked bread.
Before the rhubarb crumble is served, I scramble to the top of a promontory and look out at the seascape and the way that the light filters across it – pastel pink and powder blue blending sinuously right before the waning sun casts the entire setting in gold. “Notice that light?” Prevoteaux says. In less than fifteen minutes, I’ve witnessed two of the five interior ambience light themes available in the new fully electric Volvo EX30 Cross Country: Forest Bath, Northern Light, Nordic Twilight, Midsummer, and Archipelago. Spoiler: it’s the final two. And yes, the resemblance is uncanny.
The following day, I don a sprayskirt and a life preserver and disembark from the small slipway of Stocken village into a sheltered harbour, threading a kayak beyond more maroon summer houses on the island of Råön to reach the small islet of Kollholmen, where a feast is being prepared over live fire – including a mushroom dashi broth and fish en papillote barbecued in a paper bag alongside fresh vegetables, served with garlic aioli and a West Coast ranch dressing.
This car is a hell of a lot of fun
Later, I’m offered an EX30 Cross Country to explore the Orust region solo. I’m not a motorhead by any means, so when I push the pedal to the floor, I’m shocked at the G-Force involved in the acceleration. At 0-60 in 3.6 seconds, it feels like my cheeks are flapping. My stomach seems to rise into my throat as I’m shoved into the back of my seat. This car is a hell of a lot of fun, and perfect for zipping around the bucolic forest, farmland and fairytale fishing towns that dot the coast.
I use a GPS app to locate a couple of quick trail runs nearby. One departs from Hälleviksstrand, from the chapel of the same name – a distinctive wooden structure built by architect Adrian Crispin Peterson in 1904. The run begins easily, through farmland where I encounter a European adder heating its scales on the sun-warmed road. The trail becomes harder to follow as I reach smooth, circular plains of gneiss rock and thickets of hardy heather. Cairns are placed within eyeshot of each other, but the route becomes vague with the Bohuslän archipelago stretching out below.
Our primary goal was to create a vehicle with the lowest carbon footprint possible
I accidentally soak my foot in a salt bath as an outboard boat zips by, carrying a group of pleasure-seekers shouting encouragement. It’s the kind of unglamorous moment that reminds you you’re really in a place, not just observing it. As I gaze out at a red-and-white cardinal mark – a navigational buoy used to indicate hazards and guide seafarers – perched on a point of rock, it’s easy to forget where I am, or when, for that matter. The scene so closely resembles the landscapes I explored in my childhood on the coast of Maine that it’s dislocating – in a way, it feels like coming home.
Back at Hotel Strana, we enjoy a feast inspired by the local terroir: salmon with pickled potatoes, chamomile, horseradish and mustard seeds; smoked mackerel with tomatoes, black lemon and cucumber; and chanterelles on rye bread topped with Kalix löjrom – a Swedish delicacy of golden roe from the vendace fish, sustainably harvested from the northern Baltic Sea.
I catch up with Joakim Hermansson, who is 49, grew up in the area, and has worked as an engineer for Volvo for close to 25 years. He insists that I interview him in the driver’s seat of the Volvo EX30 Cross Country, for which he was product lead (sort of his car, he tells me – in the way a proud parent might describe their overachieving child). As we gaze out over the marina, in front of Hotel Strana, he explains the design challenges in creating the company’s most compact SUV yet.
“Our primary goal was to create a vehicle with the lowest carbon footprint possible to date, which meant rethinking every aspect of design and production,” he tells me. “Often, the most sustainable choice isn’t a different material. It’s using less of it altogether. That thinking led us to solutions like the soundbar: instead of spreading speakers throughout the car, we centralised the audio, which eliminated the need for extensive wiring and saved a lot of copper. We applied the same thinking elsewhere; for example, one centralised window control unit instead of four separate ones. The result is a car that, over a 200,000km lifespan, has a total carbon footprint of 28 tonnes – almost 40% lower than a comparable petrol-powered vehicle.”
It’s a common theme that time spent in nature encourages a sense of custodianship in the individual. When you have been given something by a place, you have a duty of care in return. This seems to be patently the case with Volvo. Safety has been built into the company’s design language, no matter whether that’s a three-point seatbelt, world-leading crash protection, or safeguarding the planet’s health by lowering its carbon footprint. Even if you aren’t a treehugger, it’s hard not to admire their efforts.
