The Volvo EX90
When Volvo launched the fully electric EX90 in South Africa in March, my first impression was that it was absolutely lovely, but way too pricey.
It was launched at R2 650 000 but, surprisingly, Volvo reported that it sold 30 units by the end of April.
The EX90 was also crowned the 2025 World Luxury Car of the Year so it was important for the Mail & Guardian to spend some time with the vehicle before making a final judgment on the price.
When the EX90 landed on my driveway, it was difficult to stop admiring its good looks before anything else.
Like its younger sibling, the EX30, it has this aggressive front that turns heads wherever you go. The headlights, which are meant to look like Thor’s hammer, add to the marvel of the front.
The frameless mirrors also contribute to the clean and simple yet mean look of the vehicle.
The taillights have a three-part design starting with a light bar and curving all the way down on each side to form a horseshoe.
Ultimately, the EX90 is more than attractive from the outside, it’s downright sexy.
It makes you feel like you want to step in and start enjoying the vehicle.
When you step inside, you find a first class cabin.
A clean dashboard made out of recycled materials — leather or cloth seats, depending on what the customer has chosen — and a 14.5-inch display screen that comes fully equipped with a Google operating system.
Volvo also included a nine-inch screen in front of the driver that acts as a digital cluster. This is a huge improvement from the EX30, which didn’t have anything in front of the driver and meant having to look at the infotainment screen for information, leading to distractions while driving.
You also get a huge panoramic glass roof. This allowed my toddler to look at the stars and fall asleep, but the only annoying part about that glass roof is that it gets dirty quickly and you can see the dirt from the inside. I wish they had included ambient lighting or a themed glass roof to help with this.
The vehicle is also a seven-seater SUV. The second row of seats are comfortable for any adult while the third row is suitable for kids.
One nice feature I enjoyed is that the middle seat in the second row can be turned into a built-in booster seat, which is a valuable addition for parents with young children.
The drive
When I drove the car on launch, it was very brief. The Volvo EX90 did not feel like a car that weighed close to three tonnes.
While testing it for a week, it became clear why this car was named World Luxury Car of the Year 2025.
The take off is smooth, effortless and the way it picks up speed is calm and linear, unless you put it into performance mode.
But you could be driving the national speed limit on the highway and feel like you are just cruising through a suburb. That is just how amazing the vehicle is to drive.
The twin motors connected to the 111kWh battery pack delivers 380kW of power and 910Nm of torque which means that power will never be a problem even for a car of this size.
Overtakes and quick boosts on the highway are completely effortless. The best part about all of it is that it is done in complete silence.
Charging and software issues
The Volvo EX90 is beautiful, elegant and drives like a dream, but it is not short of flaws.
On the second day of my test, I jumped into the car in the morning and it didn’t want to move out of park.
I started panicking. I thought to myself: “Did I just break a R2.7 million car?”
Then the infotainment system gave me an alert that the Electronic Stability Control had been temporarily disabled, which made me stress even more.
The infotainment system then pointed out that the car had a critical error.
It also said there was a software update available. I did some research and it turned out that this was an issue on Volvo models like the XC90 where the software would glitch and the car was not able to move.
I decided to update the software which took about 90 minutes and required a minimum of 40% of battery.
Once it was done, the car was ready to move again, but this was highly inconvenient and something that Volvo needs to address urgently.
A car filled with the amount of technology that this car has should at least warn the driver that a system update is due the night before.
South Africa is still underdeveloped in terms of charging stations. If you are in and around Johannesburg, it’s easy enough to find a charging station.
But, for someone like me, who lives as far east as the East Rand goes, the closest charging station was 35km away.
This meant that I had to account for stopping and charging every time I needed to go out.
This is a mild issue however, because Volvo has promised to provide new EX90 owners with two years of free public charging, a GridCars wallbox with installation at home and 10 GB of Vodacom data per month for three years.
Volvo claims 604km of range on the battery. A full battery gave me about 550km, which is not bad. On a 50kWh fast charger, it took two hours to charge the battery from 18% to 100%.
Safety
Dubbed the safest Volvo ever engineered, the EX90’s notably large sensor placed at the top of the car is known as the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor and forms images based on light, calculates exactly where those images are and submits it to the vehicle, which can then make an intelligent decision.
LiDAR has been tested to detect small objects up to 150m away and larger objects from 250m away. Volvo estimates that these advanced safety technologies can reduce serious injuries or fatalities by 20%.
Thanks to its intelligence, Volvo guarantees that with future updates to the software, it will further contribute to autonomous driving.
Other safety features include steering support (Pilot Assist), a head-up display, a 360-degree camera, Lane Keeping Aid, Park Pilot Assist, Run-off Road Mitigation, Blind Spot Information System with cross-traffic alert, Collision Avoidance and Mitigation, Intersection Autobrake and Road Sign Information.
Verdict
The Volvo EX90 is almost too good to be true both on the outside and inside. It’s powerful, big and super luxurious and comfortable.
Every day, it felt more and more worth it until I remembered the actual price.
At R2 650 000, the price still feels a little too heavy to me.