Volvo EX90 review: too large, too heavy and too expensive for the UK

This ultra-desirable seven-seat battery-powered SUV is unusually quiet, but is it really worth the £100,000-plus asking price?

After a launch in America, you wonder about the typical owner of this new, almost three-tonne Volvo SUV, which will command a six-figure price and is built in the company’s factory at Charleston, South Carolina – as well as a Geely plant in Chengdu, China.
Large, rich families, perhaps? Best not make that too large. Volvo’s blurb calls the EX90 “a true seven-seater”, but the reality is that the rearmost seats are barely larger than a cinema usher’s perch. Better not be too fond of drinks and powering phones, either, since the middle seats are only served with two USB-C slots. Meanwhile, to uncover the cupholders, you need to fold down the centre armrest, which covers the middle seat. In that respect, the Kia EV9 accommodates a family better – and costs a lot less.
What about the hero of a new Scandi noir, wearing his woolly pully and driving his big battery Volvo into the dark, forbidding forest to mournfully uncover the latest victim? Well possibly, but we all know that cold weather and speed saps an EV range like a cruel wind through a thin coat. “What do you mean, Inspector Smorgasbord? You’re stuck at a charge point and will be there for another hour and a half?”
For the record, on a 50kW DC charger, which is most common in the UK, the EX90’s 111kWh Catl-cell lithium-ion NMC811 battery will take 92 minutes to fill, which will give a claimed range of 375 miles. With some of the most expensive public stations charging 91p per kW, a full charge will cost £97. If you are lucky enough to have off-street parking and a wallbox, a full charge will be far cheaper but will take 28 hours.
Welcome to the new world order of electric vehicles, where huge and heavy cars command massive purchase prices but low resale values. Where on-the-go charging is stupefyingly costly and driving ranges turn out to be disappointingly short of what you are initially told.
This might be the first 100 grand Volvo, but it’s hard to put that weight out of your mind. Compared with the equivalent combustion-engined XC90, the 2.8 tonne EX90 is carrying one third more kinetic energy into an impact. How does that square with this Chinese-owned firm’s avowed safety ethos?
Thomas Broberg from Volvo’s safety department defends the big Swede and confirms that Volvo is still the go-to safety car maker. He points to the Lidar scanner sticking up like a London taxi sign on the roof. It might not look particularly handsome, he admits, but “we do things with a purpose – it’s there for safety reasons”.
With more than five decades of detailed crash data in its archives, Volvo’s safety department has a shrewd idea of the circumstances that lead up to bad things happening on the road. So as well as checking the accuracy of camera, radar and Lidar against each other, the algorithms are pattern-matching for anything which looks like a build-up to an accident. Then it will trigger the sort of braking, steering avoidance and crash preparation measures for which the company is renowned.
In addition, there are a lot of things in the EX90’s crash structure which aren’t always present on rivals. There’s a massive steel frame around the battery, a lower load beam to ensure collision compliance with low-mounted vehicles and an air-suspension tank reserve which forms part of the deformation structure at the front.
Volvo might no longer spout its one-time target of no serious injuries or deaths in its cars, but it’s still there in the minds of the safety team. These days the aim is no collisions at all, and while that’s virtually impossible to achieve, as Broberg says: “It’s a good target and discipline to have.”
The drivetrain is very similar to the five-seat Polestar 3 (which I drove earlier this year) and both are based on Volvo’s scalable architecture.
Two permanent-magnet AC motors produce about 241bhp/310lb ft at the front and 268bhp/361lb ft at the rear. The rear axle is rather special and is similar in operation to Audi’s Sport axle and Honda’s similar system in the old Legend saloon. Basically, you drive the rear axle (or, in this case, the electric motor) faster than it would normally require and then slip the drive to the wheels via a couple of clutches. This means that if one of the clutches closes fully it will actively drive a wheel faster, which gives a range of tricks including forcing the vehicle into a turn harder than it would normally.
In addition, the EX90 rides on double-wishbone-based, dual-chamber air suspension front and rear, with active damping, which manages the weight with a bit more accuracy.  
At launch, the EX90 is available with two powertrains and one trim level: the £96,255 408bhp/568lb ft Twin Motor and the £100,555 517bhp/671lb ft Twin Motor Performance. While both are limited to 112mph, the 408bhp car will accelerate from 0-62mph in 5.9sec and the Performance does it in 4.9sec. Both have the same range.
Climb in and the sculpted seats are comfortable and figure hugging – the facia has that slightly cliched Scandinavian vibe of cream wood and cloth or fake leather facings. It’s actually rather lovely, but with youngsters, dogs, stuff and so on, one wonders whether the white-hued Scandi ideal will look rather grey after a couple of years of use. Like the Polestar 3, there are no grab handles in the roof, which for a performance SUV seems a silly omission. And, despite the fact that the US factory has been building these cars since June, there were quite a few glitches in the trim and in the software. At one point we had to retreat 50 yards across the car park to get the car to lock itself and reset.
On the facia, there’s the equally ubiquitous and huge (14.5in) touchscreen, though thankfully the driver gets a 9.5in instrument binnacle with a digital speedometer. There’s also a head-up display, so unlike the smaller EX30 you don’t have to tear your eyes away from the road ahead to check your speed.
Volvo has been pursuing a no-button strategy for many years with limited success, but the EX90 takes it even further. To adjust the steering wheel and door mirrors you have to go into a sub-menu in the touchscreen then use a steering wheel button to move them up and down. Frankly, it’s a pain.
The screen tiles are larger than before and there’s less of the hard-to-find swipe function and alternative screens – with fixed places for a lot of the functions. But even so, some of the sub-menus are a bugger to get to.
Spectacularly quiet and refined, the Volvo moves along the interstate at 65mph, feeling stately and ethereal. Passengers look up through the big glass sunroof at the azure Californian sky with perfect fluffy clouds. It should be peaceful, but it feels weirdly pressurised and my ears pop. I’m reminded of Rolls-Royce engineers talking about how their customers didn’t much like the sensation of completely silent travel – and while the EX90 isn’t quite as quiet as the grave, it’s sufficiently soundless to have a similarly disconcerting effect. I switch on the Bowers & Wilkins stereo and that too sounds almost too precise and isolated, as if you are in one of the weird listening booths so beloved by audio fans. You get used to it, of course, but at times the EX90 feels more like driving a refrigerator than a car.
The ride is pretty good, although the weight and huge 22-inch wheels and tyres means that concrete surfaces set up a muted roar – and the expansion gaps clump through the stiff bodyshell. Select soft on the air suspension and there’s slightly too much body movement through corners. Firm is a better compromise and a bit more comfortable, with more intuitive steering.
It’s pretty fast, of course, but despite the slightly scary prospect of this 5,026mm long, 2,039mm wide, 1,747mm high behemoth taking off like a space rocket, you really need to go looking for it. The accelerator travel and response are nicely balanced and, for the most part, the EX90 feels brisk and businesslike in its reactions.
Similarly, the brakes are beautifully balanced, with a couple of options to increase the overrun recharging. The one-pedal operation, however, seems strangely inconsistent; take your foot off the accelerator and sometimes the car stands on its nose. At other times, it drifts along like a canal boat.  
Volvos have always been much better to drive than their staid safety-based approach would indicate. The set-up team know what they are doing – even if the marketers don’t like to boast about it. The EX90 feels like a lot of other large battery vehicles, with rather too much heft, but mounted low so you turn the wheel and at any speed it rolls around the corners, until it doesn’t…
But there is some feel and feedback. It isn’t a lot, but going fast on a wide bend you can balance the car slightly on the accelerator and push until the tyres make their presence known. Fun? Not really, but it’ll do it if you really want to.
In the UK, it’s too big, too heavy and too expensive. This is the first ever 100 grand Volvo. I asked if the company’s reach might be exceeding its grasp here and received the reply: “A lot of our customers are very rich people.”
I’m not sure what to make of that, but the EX90 represents a 20 per cent increase in price from the much-loved XC90 SUV in the UK. And while Volvo isn’t the first maker to push its products into the pricing upper stratosphere (see: JLR, BMW, Mercedes-Benz), there’s a slight concern that they might start to run out of rich people to buy their cars.
Driven moderately in warm conditions, the EX90 achieved only 2.86 miles per kWh of battery power, giving an actual range of 306 miles against a 374-mile claim. At UK motorway speeds in the winter, you’d be looking at about 275 miles, maybe worse. Moreover, even on the claimed figures, the EX90 will emit CO2 at a rate of 38g/km (based on the latest UK electricity charging figures).
Form an orderly queue, then, for the old petrol/hybrid XC90, which gets a facelift sometime soon. As it stands, I can’t see a compelling case for the battery EX90 – in the UK at least.  
On test: Volvo EX90 Twin Motor Performance
Body style: five-door, seven-seat EV SUV
On sale: now (first deliveries in the autumn)
How much? range from about £96,255 (£100,555 as tested)
How fast? 112mph, 0-62mph in 4.9sec
How economical? 3.5 miles per kWh (WLTP Combined), 2.86m/kWh on test
Electric powertrain: 111kWh gross (107kWh useable) lithium-ion NMC 811 battery, with twin permanent magnet AC motors driving the front and rear wheels with dual-clutch system on the rear axle and step-down gearing for both motors; four-wheel drive
Electric range: 374 miles (WLTP), 306 miles on test
Maximum power/torque: 517bhp /671lb ft
CO2 emissions: 0g/km (tailpipe), 38g/km (CO2 equivalent well-to-wheel)
VED: £0
Warranty: three years/60,000 miles
This top model EV9 has equally modern (weird) styling as the big Volvo, with a conservatively quoted range of 313 miles from the 99.8kWh lithium-ion battery. On passive steel suspension, it rides well but doesn’t handle as adroitly when pushed. This isn’t a vehicle which astounds you with its driving fun or cornering prowess, but it is competent, safe and long-legged on the motorway. 
Cheaper versions of this flagship EV SUV are available from £77,440, but you need to get used to the style. The 111.5kWh lithium-ion battery gives a range of up to 348 miles, efficiency of 3.8 miles per kWh and charging up to 195kW on a DC charger. The 610bhp/811lb ft output gives 0-62mph in 3.8sec and a top speed reined in at 155mph. Unlikely to be purchased by anyone who isn’t running the car through the books and able to tap into the Government’s first-year allowance scheme to save tax, so expect the top-model iX to remain a rare sight.
Testing on the frozen lakes of Sweden began this April in temperatures as low as minus 40-degrees C, where electrics and battery energy can be vulnerable. Rumours abound over just what motor/drive system Land Rover engineers have chosen for this much-anticipated car, but the hint is that the new EV will offer the performance of the V8 model and that it will be as competent off-road as any other Range Rover – but a lot more expensive.