Volvo's EX90 SUV was (mostly) worth the wait

There's a big trend in electric SUVs right now, and it probably isn't what you think. It isn't a longer range. It's not more advanced battery construction, super-fast charging or even NACS plugs. No, the real trend in electric SUVs is being delayed. Porsche's electric Macan took its sweet time going to production, as did its sibling the Audi Q6 E-Tron, which was also delayed for months.

Volvo's EX90 has suffered from the same fate. Originally slated to be on the market in 2023, it, plus its corporate cousin the Polestar 3, are only now finally starting to stumble out of Volvo's manufacturing facility near Charleston, South Carolina. Finally, Volvo let me behind the wheel of a pre-production model on a test drive to see whether it was worth the wait.

Was it? Yes and no, but I'm happy to say it's mostly yes.

Let's start with what it is. As the name implies, the EX90 is something of a battery-powered counterpart to the brand's XC90 SUV, the biggest in its lineup. Like the XC90, the EX90 is a three-row SUV with seating for six or seven, depending on configuration, a big, upright stance, and, of course, more safety features than you can shake a stick at.

But Volvo didn't just gut an XC90 and slap a big battery pack in where the engine, exhaust, and fuel tank once lived. This is a dedicated EV platform, an all-new one, designed from the get-go to be electric. It houses a 111-kilowatt-hour battery pack (107 kWh usable) and has a pair of electric motors, one at the rear and one at the front, delivering all-wheel drive.

Whether you go for the base, the $79,995 Plus, or the more luxe $84,345 Ultra trim, you get the same dual-motor configuration making 402 horsepower and 568 foot-pounds of torque. If that's not enough, you can spend $5,000 more for the Twin Motor Performance option, which turns the wick up to 510 hp and 671 lb-ft of torque. Both versions are rated for up to 310 miles of range on the EPA test, depending on which options you select.

Interestingly, though, the two models have exactly the same motors and other related hardware. What do you get with the extra $5,000 then? A different set of software and a little white badge on the back that says "TWIN PERFORMANCE." Welcome to the future.

Interior

At six feet tall, I could barely squeeze into that third row. There just wasn't anywhere for my feet or knees to go. The second row was much more comfortable, with plenty of headroom, but I still wouldn't call it spacious, with nothing like the generous legroom found in the second row of a BMW iX or even a Hyundai Ioniq 5.

Thankfully, I spent most of my time in the front seats, which are excellent. Volvo offers a pair of interior fabrics, Dawn Quilted Nordico, which has a leather-like feel, or Tailored Wool Blend, which feels like a higher-end woven upholstery. My favorite is the latter, by far. Those seats offer generous adjustment and a surprisingly comprehensive massage. Ventilation is about the only thing missing, and that is a bit of a shame.

The rest of the interior is quite stark and clean. The white trim over the charcoal fabric on the machine I drove looks fantastic, as does the raised grain on the wooden dash insert, let down only a bit by the unfortunate bands of chrome running around it.

The highlight of the dash, though, is the 14.5-inch portrait touchscreen that sits upright in the middle. On it, you have access to the Android Automotive system that controls the entirety of the user interface, including the 9.0-inch gauge cluster behind the steering wheel and the projected heads-up display.

Volvo's interface here looks similar to what they started offering about five years ago, but it's so much more comprehensive and responsive to use than before. Google Maps running natively is a great experience, as is being able to do things like adjust vehicle settings via voice with Google Assistant. The inevitable Gemini integration should only make it more powerful.

Android Automotive also gives access to numerous media apps, including Tidal, which offers Dolby Atmos streaming. For the first time, Volvo has a sound system capable of taking advantage of it. A new Bowers & Wilkins system with a whopping 25 speakers fills the cabin with rich, crisp sound. It's available as part of the Ultra trim, which nearly makes it worth the upgrade cost over the base EX90 on its own.

Drive time

The EX90 I test drove was outfitted with the company's largest wheels, 22 inches, and those were wrapped in sticky, European-spec summer tires instead of the more moderate all-season tires American EX90s will feature. Despite those two factors, the EX90 offers superb ride quality.

It was smooth, quiet, and comfortable over every separation joint on the highway and the few broken bits of asphalt I could find. Only a hint of wind noise at the highway speed betrayed the fact that I was moving through space and time and not just the latter. All that conspires to make it an even better soundscape for each of those 25 speakers.

The suspension is tuned for compliance, and the EX90 tends to float a bit after striking larger bumps or the like. But, despite that, it was still reasonably engaging on tighter, twistier canyon roads. I wouldn't say it was sharp or necessarily sporty, but it was genuinely fun.

It turns well and has minimal body roll for such a tall thing, thanks in part to situating that big battery pack down in the floor. And, yes, it has plenty of acceleration. Perhaps too much, actually. The throttle pedal is a bit sharp, which may have rear-seat passengers with sensitive stomachs turning green. Perhaps another reason to skip the white interior, lovely as it is.

The one-pedal driving mode is likewise quite sharp, promptly bringing the EX90 down to a complete stop. If that's not to your liking, you can disable it. When off, the EX90 is happy to coast along. There's a third option, too: Automatic. Here, the car coasts most of the time, but if there's a car ahead, it'll more aggressively apply regen to maintain distance.

That's just one aspect of the car's advanced driver systems, which were a bit hit-or-miss.

Big sensors

The most interesting styling cue of the EX90, an SUV that is very smart and sophisticated looking but rather understated, is the sensor pod perched above the windscreen. Inside lives a Luminar Lidar pod, scanning the road ahead and generating a 3D point map of every obstacle. Or, at least, it will.

Right now, that little bit of roof decor is just that. But Volvo said they'll light that sensor up and start collecting data via software update next year. At some point in the future, it'll start integrating better into the car's adaptive safety system, basically acting as another point of reference to augment the other sensors.

What's in there now feels more or less like Volvo's current machines. The Pilot Assist system provides comprehensive active lane-keep assistance, meaning it'll keep the car centered in the lane. Volvo has also added an automatic lane-change feature, but you still need to trigger it manually with a full press of the turn stalk. It's all good enough, but a decided step behind the hands-off systems available from Ford, General Motors, and BMW. I also had some issues during my drive, with the lane-centering system refusing to engage on secondary roads.

There were other problems, too. The car uses UWB (ultra-wide band) connectivity with smartphones to work without a key, but our car struggled to detect the phone, leaving me stuck for a few minutes of annoying fiddling every time I got out of the car. It also struggled to detect that my hands were on the wheel, going so far as to disable the active steering system at one point because it thought I wasn't paying attention. (I was.)Finally, the entire active safety suite threw errors twice, once requiring a technician with a laptop to fix.

Wrap-up

After all the delays for the machine, I have to admit I was expecting a more polished experience. That said, I'd suggest not holding that against the EX90. I'm confident Volvo's engineers can fix these issues before the SUVs start showing up at dealerships, which Volvo says will happen sometime before the end of the year.

That the active safety suite lags behind the competition is a bit unfortunate, but surely Volvo has bigger plans for the EX90. The company didn't throw that Lidar sensor on the roof just for looks. Those things are expensive.

Which brings us to the price. Again, the EX90 starts at $79,995 for a dual-motor version with up to 310 miles of range, which puts it in the same ballpark as the Rivian R1S or the Tesla Model X, two other premium three-row SUVs. However, the upcoming Polestar 3, built on the same platform but lacking the Lidar sensor on the roof and the third row of seats out back, starts at $5,000 less.

Is the Volvo worth the extra cost? We'll have to wait until we get some seat time in its corporate cousin until we can say for sure. Stay tuned for that.

Update, September 3 2024, 6:01PM ET: This story has been updated to remove two paragraphs that inaccurately described the dimensions of the EX90 due to a conversion error.