2024 Volvo EX90 SUV

2024 Volvo EX90 First Impressions

　　•11/09/2022 (updated 5/09/2023)

　　What is the EX90?

　　The XC90 has long held the title of Volvo's SUV flagship, but a usurper is set to rise: the new fully electric 2024 Volvo EX90. It takes the XC90's general principles of safety, space and Scandinavian luxury with it but adds a new all-electric powertrain to the mix. While the XC90 will be sold alongside it for the foreseeable future, the EX90 sets the tone for what we can expect from Volvo in the coming years.

　　This is just an early look at the EX90, with Volvo only releasing details about one trim. The EX90 will be initially available in a two-motor, all-wheel-drive configuration — that means one motor up front and one at the back. Those motors will pull from a 111-kWh battery pack and produce 496 horsepower and 671 lb-ft. of torque. As for range, Volvo says the EX-90 will deliver up to 300 miles on a single charge. It also says the EX90 can go from 10% to 80% state of charge in as little as 30 minutes.

　　Being a Volvo, safety is first and foremost. The EX90 casts an invisible net around the car and its occupants, inside and out, via an array of cameras, radar and lidar sensors. Together, the systems create a "real-time, 360-degree view of the world" that the automaker says will help keep drivers and passengers out of trouble while out on the road. As a result, Volvo says the EX90 is the safest car the company has ever made.

　　The array of sensors also help make the EX90 ready for the advent of autonomous driving, and the automaker says "the Volvo EX90 is the first Volvo that's hardware-ready for unsupervised driving in the future." Volvo's current Pilot Assist suite of driver assist tech is a solid start, but we've found it needed a little more refinement to be a class-leading system like the ones found in BMWs and Mercedes-Benz products. Hopefully the extra sensors and the processing power of a central brain provided by Nvidia help Volvo reach the next level.

　　Other tech is plentiful, too. The EX90 will come with a 14.5-inch center screen that runs an adapted version of Google's Android software. It's a similar system to the ones found in current Volvos, and while we're happy with its functionality, we found that on occasion the Volvo couldn't keep up with the operating system's demands. The EX90's system promises to be "lightning-fast," though, Volvo says. It also offers the ability to use Apple CarPlay, so if you're not an Android fan, you can always bypass the default UI.

　　The interior itself looks like a sumptuous place to be in terms of materials and overall design, but we're already lamenting the absence of physical buttons for most commands like the climate controls and volume adjustment. We hope Volvo has found an intuitive solution for screen-only operation, which we've found can occasionally be clunky and more difficult to undertake while driving. Button gripes aside, the interior will hopefully feel as luxurious as it looks.

　　The Volvo EX90 will be on sale here in the States toward the end of next year, and Volvo says it will come well equipped at under $80,000. We assume that means it will start around $78,000 and have a number of standard niceties while leaving out a few swanky options like the Bowers & Wilkins stereo system. When it does finally enter production, the EX90 will be built at Volvo's plant in Ridgeville, South Carolina.