Volvo’s factory outside Charleston, South Carolina is now building the first production EX90 SUVs.
When it first made its debut in November 2022, the new Volvo EX90 made its pitch as a fully electric successor (of sorts) to the long-running XC90 flagship SUV. Fast forward from late 2023, and the first production models are now rolling off Volvo’s US production line in Ridgeville, South Carolina.
The first example of Volvo’s production-spec EX90 is finished in Denim Blue, with delivery set for the first customer in the coming months. It still packs the same sort of styling as it did 18 months ago, but key factors that held up its production was honing its safety hardware, including its new lidar system, as well as its software and use of Nvidia’s “Drive Orin” platform for vision processing, AI and infotainment.
Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan says of this new model, “The EX90 comes with a powerful core system, is always connected and can be improved over time through software updates. These updates are delivered by our software engineers, enabled by AI and informed by real-time data collection.” The sort of challenges Volvo’s engineers grappled with that delayed the EX90’s production bore solutions that will, inevitably, worth their way into the company’s next-generation cars built on its Global Product Architecture.
Volvo’s South Carolina plant produces the new EX90 as well as the S60 sedan. While the company’s SUVs are still its highest-volume sellers, the S60 has also played an important role in its recent sales reports, with year-to-date numbers through May 2024 up 255% from last year. Another important vehicle, the smaller electric EX30 SUV, is also set to go on sale this summer.
