Volvo ES90 Unveiled as Brand’s First Flagship EV Saloon

The all-new Volvo ES90 breaks cover as the marque’s first-ever flagship EV saloon, featuring up to 700 KM of range.

Following an elaborate teaser campaign and leaked images, the much-anticipated Volvo ES90 has finally made its official global debut. Unveiled as the brand’s first-ever flagship all-electric saloon, the new ES90 is packed with tons of amenities and headline-grabbing figures, including a claimed maximum EV range of up to 700 KM.

We’ll start with its design first, as the ES90 gets a pretty traditional three-box sedan bodystyle, albeit with some sporty and crossover-inspired bits like its sleek roofline, a liftback tailgate, and the slightly jacked-up ground clearance.

Being Volvo’s new flagship EV sedan, the ES90 adopts some typical design cues such as the signature Thor’s hammer LED headlights, C-shaped LED taillights with extended LED strips on the C-pillars, sharp shoulder lines with flushed door handles, and large 22-inch wheels.

Despite its flagship status, the new ES90 is actually on-par in size with most midsize premium EV saloons.

While it may not look like so in photos, the new ES90 is a certified behemoth, spanning 5,000 MM long, 1,942 MM high, 1,546 MM tall, and a wheelbase of 3,102 MM. Despite its position as Volvo’s top-flight EV saloon, the ES90 is actually on par with some other premium midsize EV saloons, such as the BMW i5 and the Mercedes-Benz EQE, to name a few.

Being Volvo’s new top-dog saloon, the ES90 predictably gets a pretty elaborate cabin equipment list, featuring all the latest and greatest tech the Swedish marque has to offer. Some key amenities primed here include a massive 14.5-inch portrait touchscreen powered by Google, a smaller 9.0-inch digital instrument cluster with a head-up display (HUD), light-coloured Scandinavian trims and upholstery made from recycled materials, and many more.

Practicality is quite decent in this seemingly large liftback saloon, with the ES90’s rear seats able to be individually reclined, while the boot capacity modestly measures at 425 litres as standard and can be expanded to 1,256 litres with the seats folded down. In case you need more space, there’s also a small, 22-litre frunk at your disposal, which is enough to store your AC charging cable and other tools.

Just like its SUV twin, the new ES90 is also fitted with Volvo’s Superset tech stack, although the sedan gets two Nvidia Orin X chipsets instead of one like the EX90, resulting in an impressive computing power that can process more than 500 trillion operations per second. Combined with its elaborate safety hardware like a LiDAR sensor, as well as tons of exterior radars and sensors, the ES90 promises to deliver one of the most advanced vehicle safety systems on the market.

In terms of underpinnings, we’ve been told prior that the ES90 will underpin an 800-volt version of Volvo’s SPA2 platform, granting it an impressive charging speed of up to 350 kW. Through this, Volvo claims a 10-minute charge is enough to supply the ES90 with up to 300 KM of EV range, while a 10-80% charge can be completed in just 20 minutes.

With three powertrain options available, the ES90’s lineup starts with the baseline, 328 HP and 480 NM-rated Single Motor Extended Range variant, featuring a smaller 88-kWh battery pack. Century sprint time reads at 6.9 seconds for this entry-level variant, while its maximum EV range is capped at 650 KM.

The lineup continues with the mid-spec Twin Motor AWD variant, where its 443 HP and 670 NM-rated dual-motor setup grants a quicker 0-100 KM/H time of 5.5 seconds. Sitting atop the ES90’s lineup is the Twin Motor Performance variant, featuring a 671 HP and 870 NM-rated dual-motor setup that provides a rapid century sprint time of four seconds flat.

Volvo claims a full-charge on the ES90's 102-kWh battery can provide the saloon with up to 700 KM of maximum EV range.

Both the dual-motor variants use the larger 102-kWh battery unit that provides it with a headline-grabbing max range figure of up to 700 KM. Regardless of variants, however, all ES90 models are capped with a 180 KM/H V-max.

Sales for the all-new Volvo ES90 are scheduled to begin later this summer for most key global left-hand drive (LHD) markets, with prices starting from €72,000 (RM343,893) onwards in its native Europe. Right-hand drive (RHD) markets like the UK, however, will have to wait at least one year before getting their hands on this flagship EV saloon.

Closer to home, Volvo Car Malaysia (VCM) recently opened the registration of interests (ROIs) for both the EX90 and XC90 facelift SUVs, with their debut set to follow suit soon. Given such circumstances, it won’t be too far-fetched to presume that we too might get the ES90 next year, although the expiring EV tax duty exemption period may delay such plans.