Volvo is continuing to drop hints about its upcoming high-tech electric sedan, the ES90, ahead of the EV’s official reveal next month. Today, the Swedish automaker provided new details about the ES90’s range and battery efficiency, calling it “a car that goes further and charges faster than any electric Volvo before.”

That’s mostly thanks to the ES90’s new-for-Volvo 800-volt architecture, putting it on par with other fast-charging EVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6. The new architecture is an upgrade from previous Volvo EVs, like the $80,000 EX90 SUV, which features a 400-volt system.

Volvo claims that the ES90 will be able to add 300km (186 miles) of range in just 10 minutes when plugged into a 350kW fast-charging station (depending on the outdoor temperature). Moreover, it will offer a driving range of up to 700km (435 miles) under the more generous WLTP testing cycle.

Automakers are increasingly trending toward higher voltage systems in the hopes of luring in more customers who are turned off by slow charging speeds and the prospect of being stuck at a public charging station for 40 minutes or more. Stellantis, parent company of Jeep and Ram, recently announced a new 800-volt flexible architecture for some of its upcoming EVs.

Volvo said it needed to upgrade a number of its components in order to support the higher voltage system, including battery cells, motors, inverters, and thermal parts. The new motors were lighter and more efficient, and the overall system now creates less heat, meaning the battery can be charged at a faster rate without overloading the electrical system.

Volvo also plans to introduce a new, in-house-developed battery management software for the ES90, provided by Breathe Battery Technologies, which also received investments from Volvo’s corporate venture capital arm. The new software will slash the amount of time it takes to charge from 10 to 80 percent by as much as 30 percent, down to 20 minutes.

The ES90 will also feature a slew of recycled materials, including 29 percent of the aluminum, 16 percent of polymers, and 18 percent of steel. Wood panels inside the ES90 are made from FSC-certified wood, Volvo says. The automaker is also introducing a new blockchain-based battery “passport” to track raw materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite used in the battery. 

Do you remember The Simpsons episode "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield"? It first aired in February 1996, and it's the one where Homer and Bart go to Appliance Zone and are confronted with "genuine" Panaphonics, Sorny, and Magnetbox TVs. Well, it seems a similar brand name game has been going on at a Volvo dealership in China.

News started filtering out of China last week about an owner of a Volvo S60 sedan who realized the speakers in his car were not from Bowers and Wilkins, as they were supposed to be. Instead, the speakers were branded Bowers and VVilkins, substituting a pair of Vs for the W. We've seen that "typosquatting" approach in malicious emails plenty of times, but it's a first in a Volvo.

That wasn't the only phony part of the customer's S60. He also realized that the crystal transmission knob wasn't entirely right either and lacked the genuine article's backlighting.

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Volvo’s next electric vehicle, the ES90 midsized luxury sedan, sounds like its got some serious computing chops.

The new EV will come with a dual Nvidia Drive AGX Orin configuration, making it the “most powerful car Volvo ever created in terms of core computing capacity,” the company claims today. The new supercomputer is included as part of a single tech stack called Superset, which Volvo says will underpin all of its next-gen vehicles going forward.

The ES90 will be Volvo’s first vehicle to come with the Nvidia’s system-on-a-chip, enabling it to perform core functions at lightning fast speeds thanks to the computer’s abilities to perform 508 trillion operations per second (TOPS). This will come handy when managing functionalities such as “AI-based, state-of-the-art active safety features, car sensors and efficient battery management.”

Orin system also represents an “eightfold” improvement in processing speeds over the San Jose-based chipmaker’s Xavier computer that featured in the 2018 announcement of a team-up between Volvo and Nvidia on in-car hardware. The increased processing power to enable Volvo to gradually enhance its deep learning model and neural network “from 40 million to 200 million parameters,” the company says.

The ES90 will be built on Volvo’s SPA2 architecture and will be the second vehicle, after the EX90, to be based on its Superset tech stack. Superset is a modular engineering platform that the company says will be used to make safer cars, more efficiently, and to improve them over time through over-the-air software updates.

Tesla was the first company to introduce the idea of a connected vehicle with updateable software that could improve over timne. Now, the rest of the industry is scrambling to catch up by introducing their own upgradable vehicles. Volvo’s EX90 was intended to be the first major effort, but the electric SUV was delayed by software troubles, and when it eventually arrived it lacked many of its promised features.

Volvo says it envisions a future in which features such as driver assist technology and battery range are able to be improved over time thanks to this new tech stack. And improvements for the EX90 will be translatable to the ES90, and vice versa.

“The Volvo ES90 is one of the most technically advanced cars on the market today and is designed to be improved further with time,” says Anders Bell, Volvo’s chief engineering and technology officer, in a statement. “Built on our state-of-the-art Superset tech stack, the ES90 puts safety at the forefront.”

• Volvo's Jim Rowan told BI he didn't think governments should give incentives to people buying EVs.
• President Donald Trump has vowed to roll back electric vehicle subsidies in the US.
• Rowan joins the Tesla boss Elon Musk in arguing that subsidies for EVs are a bad idea.

Elon Musk isn't the only auto boss who thinks subsidies for electric vehicles are a bad idea.

Jim Rowan, the CEO of the Swedish auto giant Volvo Cars, told Business Insider that he disagreed with the idea that governments should subsidize the EV industry, as President Donald Trump unravels federal support for electric vehicles in the US.

"I don't subscribe to the fact that government should give incentives for people to buy EVs," Rowan said in an interview after Volvo released its 2024 results on Thursday.

"I think governments have got enough to spend money on, in terms of healthcare and education, that they shouldn't need to subsidize industries."

Rowan added, "I would like to see them do more about infrastructure to encourage people to buy EVs, or tax incentives, but I'm not a proponent of actual subsidies themselves."

Trump has signed a series of executive orders signaling his intent to scrap EV subsidy programs and emissions targets, with reports suggesting the new administration is planning to ditch the $7,500 tax credit for new EVs in the US.

Auto industry experts have warned that cutting the tax credit could make electric vehicles unaffordable for many Americans, but that hasn't stopped Musk, a Trump ally, from expressing support for its demise.

"End all government subsidies, including those for EVs, oil and gas," he wrote in a post on X last year.

Musk has argued that ending the incentive would devastate Tesla's competitors but help the company in the long run, even though many buyers of Tesla's vehicles benefit from the $7,500 credit. Tesla began advertising the Cybertruck with the tax credit this week.

The withdrawal of US government support for EVs adds to the storm clouds facing automakers this year; the trade war sparked by Trump in the past month also threatens to severely disrupt the auto industry.

In an earnings call after Volvo Cars released its fourth-quarter results, Rowan predicted the industry would be "severely tested" in a "challenging" 2025.

The Swedish automaker, which last year abandoned plans to sell only EVs by 2030, said operating income and margins declined in the latest quarter. Its shares fell by as much as 10% on Thursday.

Rowan told BI that Volvo may have to reconsider the economics of producing future vehicles in Europe if Trump follows through on his threat of imposing tariffs on the European Union. He added that trade levies on the EU could raise car prices in the US.

"Ultimately it might make it more expensive for the end customer," Rowan said, adding that depending on the severity of tariffs automakers may choose to pass the cost onto consumers rather than shift production.

"If you're going to move production that's expensive," Rowan said, adding that if the tariffs are "below a certain amount, it doesn't make sense — you've just got to eat those tariffs or try and pass them on to the customer."

Volvo, which is owned by the Chinese conglomerate Geely, has already faced tariff headaches over its EX30 electric SUV.

With a starting price of about 38,000 euros, or about $39,600, the EX30 has proved popular in Europe, but its debut in the US was delayed as a result of the 100% tariffs on Chinese-built EVs introduced by the Biden administration last year.

Some EX30 trims are available in the US, at a starting price of $44,900, and Volvo is set to start producing the EV at its Belgium factory in the first half of this year. But Rowan said the uncertainty around tariffs was making an already difficult outlook for the auto industry more complicated.

"When you have a changing landscape of tariffs, it just makes it more complex and costly to navigate through," he said.

Self-driving truck startup Waabi is partnering with Volvo Autonomous Solutions to jointly develop and deploy autonomous trucks, an important milestone as it gets closer to a commercial launch.  The tie up also marks Volvo’s second partnership to co-develop self-driving big rigs with a startup partner. In May 2024, Volvo teamed up with Aurora Innovation to […]

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• Donald Trump's proposed tariffs could raise car prices, impacting US and European automakers.
• Tariffs may cost carmakers 17% of annual earnings and lead to credit downgrades, per S&P Global.
• General Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, Stellantis, and Volvo could be hit the hardest.

President-elect Donald Trump's new tariff proposals could hit American and European carmakers hard — and could push prices up for your next car.

A Friday note by S&P Global estimates a 25% tariff on Canadian and Mexican imports, coupled with a 20% tariff on light vehicle imports from the EU and UK, could cost some carmakers 17% of their annual earnings — and as high as over 30% — before factoring in interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

Higher tariffs could hit General Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, Stellantis, and Volvo hardest, S&P Global said. Meanwhile, BMW, Ford, Hyundai, and Mercedes-Benz may be less impacted.

"Donald Trump's re-election will likely intensify the headwinds the global auto industry will face in an already challenging 2025," the authors wrote.

These tariffs could push car prices higher and lead Americans to dig deeper into their wallets for another vehicle. Wells Fargo estimated Wednesday that tariffs could raise the price of cars made in the US by an average of $2,100. For vehicles fully produced in Canada or Mexico, prices in the US may increase between $8,000 and $10,000 higher, Wells Fargo estimated.

Kelley Blue Book data from October shows the average new vehicle transaction price in the US was over $48,600.

Trump announced on Monday that on his first day in office, he would sign an executive order that would put a 25% tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico and would remain in effect until "drugs, in particular, fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country!"

The US relies heavily on its neighbors for its cars. Commerce Department data reveals that the US imports over 2.3 million cars annually from Mexico. Of all US trade over the first three quarters, Mexico accounts for nearly 16%, while Canada is 14.5%. Business Insider previously detailed the exact car brands and models that could be most heavily impacted.

Trump is also expected to cut the $7,500 tax credit for EV purchases included in President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which would likely reduce EV sales.

Both Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have spoken against the tariff proposals.

Sheinbaum suggested Tuesday that Mexico may impose its own tariffs on the US, adding Mexico has been hurt by the smuggling of drugs and weapons from the US.

Trudeau on Friday said the tariffs would have negative impacts on both Canadians and Americans.

"Our responsibility is to point out that he would not just be harming Canadians, who work so well with the United States, but he would actually be raising prices for Americans citizens as well and hurting American industry and business," Trudeau said.