Yahoo Autos The 2025 Volvo EX90 Is Almost a Great Electric SUV
There’s nothing more frustrating than almost. A “staycation” is almost a vacation, but it’s not. “Near beer” is almost Stella Artois, but it isn’t. Finishing second is almost winning, but it’s really losing. Volvo’s new EX90 is almost a great all-electric SUV. Almost.
Starting on an up note, the EX90’s interior is stunning. All ashy wood trim and seats are covered in an optional shockingly elegant material blending wool with recycled plastic soda bottle fibers. The two display screens aren’t obnoxious and the volume knob sets a new lofty standard for big volume knobs. It’s roomy for five too. For seven? Eh, a bit tight but manageable if the wayback is reserved for toddlers, infants, and/or pets. Small pets. That’s the big up.
For $500 Volvo will replace the second-row couch with individual thrones. That knocks the passenger count down to six.
The EX90 is the same size as its internally combusted stablemate, the XC90. But the EX90 is not merely a zapped XC90, but rides on an all-new EV platform and represents a vast step forward in technological ambition. All the EX90s will be built at the Volvo assembly plant in Ridgeville, South Carolina alongside the all-electric Polestar 3 SUV which shares the same architecture. For Volvo, not a huge company, it’s a big bet.
Mechanically, the substance of the EX90 is straightforward. There are two electric motors. One in the front and, cleverly, one in the back. In the base Twin Motor, the two combine to produce 408 hp and ship the 568 lb-ft of consistent torque out to all four wheels. In the Twin Motor Performance the two motors romp with 517 hp and 671 lb-ft of twist. In both versions, the zap comes from a 111 kWh (107 kWh usable) battery pack positioned under the cabin floor and consisting of 17 heated and cooled modules. The EPA rates the EX90 at 300 miles of range on 20- and 22-inch wheels and 310 miles on 21 inchers.
Only Twin Motor Performance versions were available at the California press event. There wasn’t time to drive any of them to battery exhaustion nor an opportunity to test charging times. Volvo claims that with DC fast charging (CCS2) at rates of up to 250kW, an EX90 will rip from 10 percent to 80 percent charge in just 30 minutes.
With the very lightest version of the EX90 coming in at a claimed 5520-pound curb weight, the additional 109 horses in the Performance will matter. Volvo claims the Twin Motor will traipse to 60 mph in 5.7 seconds while the Twin Motor Performance will do the deed one second quicker.
There is no “Ludicrous” mode in the EX90. And by historic standards, a seven-seat SUV that weighs nearly three tons and gets to 60 mph so quickly is astonishing. But the electric era has re-set the standards for acceleration. So, in the context of other contemporary electrics, the EX90 is modestly quick.
To get the EX90 to market, Volvo partnered with a bunch of big-name tech companies. NVIDIA designed the robust AI processor that mediates between the vehicle and driver, Google provides the interface and maps, Qualcomm is aboard for communications and Luminar is supplying the lidar system in that leading edge roof bump. In the tech arms race, Volvo has unleashed a furious volley with the EX90. Pity that it wasn’t all working during the brief exposure along California’s Newport coast.
Volvo isn’t merely adding tech to the EX90, it’s shoveling in dang near everything imaginable. Radar, lidar, cameras, and huge computing power. There’s radar scanning the inside of the EX90 searching for abandoned children and tech that monitors whether the driver is paying attention or daydreaming. So, there are eight cameras, five radars, and 16 ultrasonic sensors aboard, plus all the usual doohickeys that monitor when a door is ajar or whether the closing tailgate is about to decapitate a dog.
It’s so much, that it’s hardly surprising that some of it comes off as half-baked. The Pilot Assist smart cruise control system on the first EX90 I drove at the event wasn’t working. The phone-activated virtual key didn’t sync with the system in the second example. Volvo is promising future over-the-air updates to the EX90 tech suite, so early buyers may find themselves watching their own vehicles be re-engineered on the fly. It’s almost a throwback to the old GM trick of “consumer-based” vehicle development. Just when they got the Fiero right…
Suspension is good. With a large A-arm at each corner, the dual-chamber air springs, and adaptive dampers that come with the Ultra pack, low-hung mass, and wide tires, this thing is planted. The base car has steel springs and passive dampers, so it will be interesting to discover how that compares. On Southern California roads featuring a few tight turns as they head into the hills, the top-spec EX90 was stable, nimble, and always reassuring. Fun may be a verb too far, but it’s fun-adjacent.
Volvo and electrification are a natural match. There’s always been a virtue-signal vibe about Volvos and batteries only expand that envelope. That’s the thing though; Volvo doesn’t need all this tech gadgetry and active driving intervention to attract buyers. It just needs to be solid and stolid and pushing its well-earned reputation for safety, longevity, and, more recently, style.
There’s no good reason that the driver should be stuck with only two power window switches on the left door to control four side windows. Why must they be toggled between front and rear? Why not spend the extra few bucks it would take to have a switch for each window. The mirrors and steering column should be adjustable without resorting to the center screen too. It’s okay for iPads to be iPads, but EVs don’t need to be.
But keep the Bowers & Wilkins sound system. That’s 25 speakers that reproduce sound in many spectacular modes including one that re-creates the inside of London’s Abbey Road Studios where the Beatles recorded, as did Glenn Miller during World War II. It’s amazing. And it works: Bowers and Wilkins should now work on similar sound profiles to reproduce the acoustics of other famous studios.
Volvo has priced the EX90 Plus at $81,290. The Performance package is a clean $5000 option. Add the Ultra pack which brings air suspension, massaging front seats, and soft close doors and you’ll spend an extra $4350, but also open the chance to additionally spec the Bowers & Wilkins speaker package ($3200) and the largest possible 22-inch wheels ($800). Tick every box and the chit will nudge up near $100,000.
Which is a lot to pay for what is, for now, a car that doesn’t feel quite finished. There is so much potential in the design that the hiccups are incredibly frustrating. Maybe in a couple of years, after some gentle futzing and tweaks, the EX90 will become good enough to leave “almost” behind.
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