Volvo will fully reveal the upcoming ES90 on March 5.
While some automakers are dialing back their electrification plans, Volvo is moving ahead with its plan to launch a full range of battery-electric vehicles. On the SUV side, the automaker’s flagship is the new EX90, while it also markets the smaller and more affordable EX40, EC40 and EX30 models alongside its three-row family hauler. It even launched the electric EM90 minivan in China. Now the next car is almost upon us, as Volvo teased its ES90 sedan Thursday, before the big livestream reveal on Wednesday, March 5.
Its arrival comes after Volvo announced a midsize sedan to follow up the long-running S90, which turns a decade old this year. This new model originally emerged as a successor while the gas-powered S90 would roll off into the sunset. However, again thanks to shifting electrification plans, it seems the company will continue selling the internal combustion car as it rolls out the new ES90, so there will be some overlap. For the electric model, Volvo will use the same SPA2 scalable architecture it uses for the EX90 (and the Polestar 3, for that matter), complete with the same 111-kWh battery pack.
Volvo isn’t focusing quite so much on the nuts and bolts (or electric motors) of its new S90 with today’s announcement, though. Instead, it’s teasing the car’s “Superset” technology stack, which defines its hardware and software modules as the automaker moves toward a single vehicle architecture with software signifying the experience, rather than necessarily the powertrains or other platform distinctions.
The company says that this single set of hardware and software modules will underpin all its upcoming electric cars, and will enable more efficient safety, technology and performance updates over-the-air. Volvo also mentions it can improve each car in its lineup simultaneously, so whatever software tweak it makes to the EX90 can also roll out to the ES90, and so on. While the hardware is rolling out to ES90 first on the company’s production lines, Volvo says existing EX90 customers will also get their cars upgraded free of charge with the new Superset tech stack modules.
While it emphasizes software as the “primary driver of innovation and value creation for our customers,” developing across a single platform and single software apparatus also drives down development-related costs, which is always welcome news for shareholders. Within the past year, Volvo Cars’ stock on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange has lost 36% of its value, so we’ll have to see whether the ES90’s debut, and its new software-first approach, impresses investors. (As a side note, Volvo Group as a whole, which includes its truck and bus division, is having a much better time: Its stock is up about 20% year-over-year.)
