At yesterday’s I/O conference, Google announced plans to start putting its AI chatbot, Gemini, in a variety of different places, including cars. Today, Volvo said it was shoving its way to the front of the line to be the first to receive the new tech.

Volvo said it was expanding its preexisting partnership with Google — the Swedish automaker was one of the first to adopt the built-in Android Automotive operating system for its vehicles — to include the integration of Gemini across its model lineup. Drivers will be able to have more “natural” conversations with their car, including language translation, navigational help, and finding specific locations. They’ll even be able to ask the AI assistant to answer questions about their vehicle’s user manual. Volvo framed it as easing the driver’s “cognitive load” so they can keep their eyes on the road.

Earlier this month, Google said that it would make Gemini available to cars that support Android Auto, the company’s popular phone mirroring program. But whereas Android Auto users will get access to Gemini in the coming weeks, vehicles with Android Automotive — marketed as Google built-in — won’t get access until later this year.

Drivers and passengers will be able to use Gemini send texts, get directions, play music, and basically all the things that Google Assistant has been able to do. The main difference is users won’t have to use stilted, robotic commands, instead relying on Gemini’s natural language capabilities.

Volvo will also now serve as one of Google’s reference hardware platforms for the development and testing of future automotive technology. That means Volvo’s vehicles will get “new features and updates” from Google before they are added to the main Android codebase.

“Through this partnership with Google, we are able to bring the very latest features and capabilities from the leading consumer eco-system into our products first,” Alwin Bakkenes, head of global software engineering at Volvo Cars, said in a statement. “With our expanding partnership, we’re collaborating on cutting-edge solutions that shape the future of connected cars.”

Volvo has worked closely with Google for a number of years and is already first in line to receive product updates, like high-def maps, built-in YouTube, and voice-controlled HVAC systems. Polestar, Volvo’s former performance subbrand (now a standalone marque), was the first company to sell cars with native Android Automotive OS.

Google’s annual developer conference, held at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, was all about Gemini this year. And the car is quickly emerging as an important platform for the chatbot, especially with its myriad of challenges — namely steering a 2-ton metal box through a complex environment riddled with pitfalls.

Google is positioning Gemini as a team player with the other core parts of the vehicle’s operating system. “Navigation apps can integrate with Gemini using three core intent formats, allowing you to start navigation, display relevant search results, and execute custom actions, such as enabling users to report incidents like traffic congestion using their voice,” Ben Sagmoe, developer relations engineer, wrote on the Android Developers Blog.

• European luxury carmakers Porsche and Volvo both issued fresh tariff warnings on Tuesday.
• The two companies reported collapsing profits as US auto tariffs batter the industry.
• A Porsche executive warned prices would "definitely" rise if Trump didn't back down.

Trump's tariffs are battering the car industry, and buyers of luxury European motors are about to feel the pain.

European luxury brands Porsche and Volvo issued new tariff warnings on Tuesday as they reported collapsing profits, with Porsche's CFO saying the company would "definitely" hike prices if the Trump administration did not back down.

"If negotiations do not turn out to be successful, and the tariff regime stays as we see it today, we will definitely increase prices in the US," said Porsche's CFO, Jochen Breckner, in an earnings call.

The German luxury brand, which said it has not yet adjusted prices in the US, is more exposed to the tariffs than many of its rivals, as it imports all the cars that it sells in the country.

Porsche cut its return on sales guidance for the second time in two months on Tuesday and said that profits had collapsed 40% in the first quarter.

The company has seen sales fall in Europe and China, but said that US deliveries had risen 42% in the first three months of the year.

Swedish rival Volvo Cars, which sells the $80,000 EX90 among other models in the US, also signalled that it would look to pass some of the cost of the tariffs onto consumers.

"For the US, we are taking commercial measures linked to pricing and what cars we sell," Volvo CFO Fredrik Hansson told analysts in an earnings call on Tuesday, adding that the company continued to monitor the market on "basically a daily basis."

Volvo Cars reported a 59% drop in operating profit in the first quarter of 2025 and withheld guidance for this year and 2026, and Hansson warned that "commercial measures" would likely not be enough to steady the ship.

The company said it would enact a $1.9 billion cost-cutting plan that would involve an unspecified number of layoffs. Volvo's shares were down over 9% on Tuesday, while Porsche's also slumped 6%.

The warnings from European firms come as the Trump administration hinted that tariff relief could be imminent for automakers.

A White House spokesperson told multiple outlets that while the 25% tariffs on imported vehicles would remain in place, automakers would be exempted from additional tariffs, such as those on imported steel and aluminum, and would be reimbursed for some of the cost of tariffs on imported car parts.

The coming U-turn will come as a relief for carmakers like Ford and GM, which faced having their profits wiped out as a result of the levies, but it is unlikely to prevent carmakers from hiking their prices as they look to absorb the cost of the tariffs.

Automakers and analysts have warned that the 25% import tax will lead to major price hikes. Anderson Economic Group previously estimated that new car prices will rise between $4,000 and $12,000, depending on the vehicle.

President Donald Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on all auto-related imports have been called “a debacle of epic proportions” and a sure-fire way to tank the auto market by crushing demand. Analysts have been predicting everything from $12,000 per vehicle price hikes to the possible “Cubanization” of the US car fleet.

Now that they’ve had a few days to process the news, the automakers are starting to get their ducks in a row and make some moves.

Here’s how each company is responding:

Audi

Now that the tariffs are in effect, the German automaker is holding all vehicles assembled in Mexico and overseas at US ports until further notice, according to Automotive News. Audi currently has 37,000 units in dealer stock and at port — which remain unaffected by the new import fees and are ready to sell. Audi reportedly said it would be marking unaffected units with a $0 “No Added Import Fee” option code for easy tracking.

“We are evaluating how to best proceed for our customers and our dealers,” Audi spokesperson Mark Dahncke said.

BMW

BMW hasn’t announced any specific response yet, but the company said last month that it expected a €1 billion hit to its 2025 …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Safety is Volvo's big thing. From three-point seatbelts to side-impact protection to blind-spot monitoring and much more, the Swedish automaker focuses its innovation on making its cars safer rather than faster around the Nürburgring. (Although in the past, it has set records there too.) As part of its efforts, Volvo has collected data from tens of thousands of car crashes, which it's now leveraging in virtual worlds to put simulated cars and SUVs through the wringer with the help of something amusingly named "Gaussian splatting."

"We've been visiting crash sites since the '70s. We've been recording event data from a fleet of cars for many, many years," said Alwin Bakkenes, head of global software engineering at Volvo Cars. "And all of those data points have actually helped us create safety innovations... from the three-point safety belt to whiplash protection systems and now also, as we're introducing in the ES90, a function called 'lidar AS,' which helps the car steer away from vulnerable road users in the dark," he said.

Like some others in the industry, Volvo is an early adopter of the software-defined vehicle, or SDV. As a quick refresher, SDVs are clean-sheet designs in terms of their electronic architecture. Instead of dozens or even a hundred discrete black boxes, each with its own hardware and running its own software, each doing a discrete job (like controlling the air conditioner or managing traction control), four or five powerful central computers take over those roles, overseeing domains like infotainment, advanced driver assistance systems, handling and powertrain, and interior comfort.

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There’s an unbelievable amount of work going on right now to boost the performance of lithium-ion batteries. PhDs around the globe are, at this very moment, furrowing their respective brows, trying to eke out a few percentage points of extra energy density, shave a few minutes off of charging times, or add a few months to a given cell’s effective lifespan.

And then along comes a startup called Breathe Battery Technologies with an algorithm that promises to boost charging speeds by upward of 30 percent, all while preserving the lifespan of those cells. It’s part of a software package light enough to run on ancient embedded systems and small enough to be deployed via over-the-air updates. Best of all, it’s not theoretical: Volvo will feature this tech on the company’s upcoming ES90 sedan, and you can already find it on some smartphones.

Here’s how it works. 

Battery basics

Before we delve into the details, let’s quickly run through exactly what’s happening inside a battery. The charge provided by a battery happens when ions flow from anode to cathode, then journey across the electrolyte while carrying electrons with them. When it’s time to recharge, the process is effectively re …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Volvo has pulled back the curtain on its upcoming ES90 electric sedan with 434 miles of range and a tech stack that includes Nvidia’s powerful Drive AGX Orin computer in a dual setup.

Volvo has been trickling news out about the ES90 over the past several weeks, but today’s announcement includes our first full look at the sedan and a full rundown on its specs, including an 800-volt architecture for fast charging and the aforementioned Nvidia system-on-a-chip.

The ES90 boasts Volvo’s longest range, fastest charging speed, and most advanced computing system of all its vehicles. The sedan will arrive with 700km of range (434.9 miles) based on the generous WLTP standard. (The EPA rating is likely to be less.)

The ES90 will come in three different variants. There’s the base model with a single motor mounted on the rear axle, with 245kW (329 horsepower) of power output and 354 lb-ft of torque. The dual-motor all-wheel drive version can put out 330kW (442hp) of power and 494 lb-ft of torque. And the dual-motor Performance ES90 can churn out 500kW (670hp) of power and 635 lb-ft of torque.

The single-motor trim sports a 92kWh battery, 88kWh of which is usable, and can accept up to 300kW of DC fast charging. Both dual-motor setups include 106kWh batteries (102kWh usable) and can draw in 350kW of fast charging.

The ES90 tops out at 112mph, as per Volvo’s policy of speed-limiting its vehicles. But the acceleration specs sound impressive, with a zero to 60mph time of 3.9 seconds for the Performance trim and 6.7 and 5.3 seconds, respectively, on the single- and dual-motor setups. 

In addition, the ES90 will showcase new battery management software, allowing it to gain 300km (186 miles) of range in just 10 minutes of charging, while a 10–80 percent charge will be completed in 20 minutes. The 800-volt system is unique in Volvo’s lineup, but it’s comparable to other fast-charging EVs, like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6.

The overall profile is tall and slightly boxy. Volvo said it wanted to purposefully blur the line between sedan and SUV, which is probably why the ES90 seems so reminiscent of the Polestar 2 fastback. (Polestar and Volvo are essentially cousins, both operating under the umbrella of parent company Geely.) Distinctively, it’s a high-riding sedan, with a height of 60.9 inches, placing it alongside other tall-ish sedans like the Toyota Crown (60.6 inches).

The ES90’s roofline is sleek, its door handles flush, and it has a lidar sensor mounted on the roof. The front end resembles the EX90, featuring Volvo’s signature “Thor’s hammer” LED headlights, with new C-shaped LED lights in the rear. There’s ample cargo space, with 424 liters of room that can grow to 733 liters with the rear seats folded down. The ES90 also features a 22-liter frunk (front trunk) for charging cable storage. The panoramic roof is electrochromic for adjustable transparency on sunny days, too. 

Like other Volvo EVs, the ES90 features Google’s built-in infotainment system, which includes native apps like Google Maps, Google Assistant, and Google Play. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Cockpit Platform powers the 5G system. And the five-inch instrument cluster resides alongside a larger 14.5-inch center screen display. 

Like the EX90 SUV, the ES90 is built on Volvo’s new Superset tech stack, which includes dual Nvidia computers with the ability to perform 508 trillion operations per second (TOPS). This will come in handy when managing functionalities such as “AI-based, state-of-the-art active safety features, car sensors and efficient battery management.” 

The ES90 is built on Volvo’s SPA2 architecture and will be the second vehicle, after the EX90, to be based on the 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.

This is Volvo’s sixth all-electric vehicle, joining the EX90 SUV, EM90 van (China only), EX40 SUV, EC40 crossover, and EX30 compact SUV. The Swedish automaker had said it would be 100 percent EV sales by 2030, but it recently updated that timeline to reflect the global slowdown in EV sales. Volvo is now saying that it will rely on a mix of hybrids and battery-electric vehicles to reach its new goal of selling “90 to 100 percent… electrified models” by 2030. 

The ES90 is an interesting addition, especially considering most US automakers have dropped sedans from their lineups in favor of trucks and SUVs. Volvo is hoping its electric sedan can fill a gap in the market, though it could prove difficult. Volkswagen recently canceled plans to sell its own electric sedan, the ID.7, in the US.

The ES90 will join the recently facelifted gas-powered S90 sedan, which starts in the US at around $59,000. Starting today, the EV version is available to order in most European countries, though Volvo has yet to announce when it will be available in the US.  The automaker also did not disclose the price.

“We will share additional details on the US ES90 offer at a later date, closer to customer deliveries,” Volvo spokesperson Sophia Durr said.

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.