AUTO

Volvo Reveals New EX90 Flagship

November 9, 2022

The new, fully electric EX90 flagship SUV from Volvo promises next-level autonomy, safety, and sustainable luxury.

The styling of the flagship Volvo 90 series has, traditionally, set the tone for the rest of the Volvo lineup — but that’s not just true of the car’s styling. The new, electric-only EX90, which is replacing the XC90 at the top of Volvo’s lineup, is also setting new standards for autonomy and, by extension, safety.

“Our sensors don’t get tired or distracted,” reads the official release. “They are designed to respond and react when you’re just a fraction too late. Our lidar can sense the road in front of you, whether it’s day or night, also at highway speeds. It can see small objects hundreds of meters ahead, creating more time to inform, act and avoid. The sensors also contribute to improve the reliability and overall performance of our assisted driving function Pilot Assist, with a new steering support while changing lanes.”

Those sensors, which include cameras, radars and lidar, are connected to the car’s high-performance core computers, where NVIDIA DRIVE runs Volvo Cars’ in-house software to create a real-time, 360-degree view of the world. You can see them mounted prominently in the top center of the windshield, are prime examples of the state of the automotive art, and (according to Volvo), make the new EX90 “hardware-ready” for fully autonomous driving.

LiDAR Sensor Array

For their part, Volvo executives seem to know that they have something really special here, and they’re calling the EX90 “a statement piece” for the brand.

“The Volvo EX90 is a statement for where we are, and where we are going,” says Jim Rowan, CEO of Volvo Cars. “It’s fully electric with a range of up to 600 kilometers (about 370 miles) on a single charge, designed to further raise our safety standards, the first Volvo car to be truly defined by its software and part of a wider ecosystem, connecting to your home and your other devices. The Volvo EX90 is the start of something new for Volvo Cars in many ways.”

What that means, in a broad sense, is that the new Volvo EX90 isn’t being seen from within the company “just” a new car. They’re looking at it as a piece of tech, like Tesla, and promise that, “just like your smartphone or your laptop, (it) is designed to get better over time, thanks to regular over-the-air software updates.”

That doesn’t mean the EX90 won’t be a great car, though. Its high-capacity 111 kWh battery pack and efficient, dual-motor electric drive train offer up to 600 km (370 miles) of electric range on the WLTP test cycle, and can charge from 10 to 80% in under 30 minutes. Those two motors are good for a combined 517 HP and more than 670 lb-ft of TQ, more than enough to deliver a … let’s go with “spirited” driving experience.

There’s more, of course. There’s the commitment to a sustainable luxury, in the form of cruelty-free interior options made from wood or recycled plastics, the high percentage of recycled and fossil-free steel, and the blockchain-certified, ethically sourced raw materials used to build the batteries and motors of the EX90 — but we’d rather look at pretty pictures right now.

If that’s you, too, scroll on down through the gallery, below, then let us know what you think of the big new flagship Volvo in the comments section at the bottom of the page.