- ES90 electric sedan will debut the most powerful computing capacity ever in a Volvo
- EX90 electric SUV will gain the same processing upgrade, be upgraded to it as a retrofit
- Will support AI-based features, more efficient battery management
Volvo’s next electric vehicle will build on the automaker’s recently-introduced tech stack with even more powerful computing hardware, the company revealed Wednesday.
The Volvo ES90 sedan was first teased last fall and will be fully revealed Mar. 5. Ahead of that reveal, it’s provided some detail on the ES90’s underlying tech, which the automaker promises will be a step up from what’s already installed in current models.
The ES90 will feature Nvidia’s Drive AGX Orin computing platform, with a capability of around 508 trillion TOPS that will give the sedan the most powerful core computing capacity of any Volvo to date. Volvo claims this computing power is needed to support AI-based features, more sophisticated safety tech, onboard sensors, and a more efficient battery management system.
This new computing hardware will augment Volvo’s Superset tech stack, which was introduced on the EX90 electric SUV—although, as Volvo confirmed to Green Car Reports, the EX90 will also be retrofitted with it, under a timeline and details yet to be confirmed. This streamlined collection of hardware and software is Volvo’s attempt to realize the future of the software-defined vehicle, enabling more software-based features pushed through quicker over-the-air (OTA) updates.
2025 Volvo EX90
The ES90 will also share Volvo’s SPA2 platform with the EX90 and Polestar 3, rather than the next-generation SPA3 scalable architecture arriving in 2026 on an electric alternative to the current Volvo XC60. But the automaker claims to be more interested in software, which it said “now replaces hardware as the primary driver of innovation and value creation for our customers.”
In keeping with Volvo’s traditional emphasis on safety, the ES90 will feature a sensor array consisting of one lidar unit, five radar units, eight cameras, and 12 ultrasonic sensors looking out, as well as “an advanced driver understanding system” looking inward. These will enable driver-assist and safety features to be detailed later.
Volvo’s pivot to software-defined vehicles did not start strongly. After delays due to that all-important software, the EX90 entered production last June, but the first customer cars arrived with a battery drain issue and without some promised features. Volvo also didn’t have a ready use for the EX90’s lidar unit, but perhaps it will find one by the time the ES90 arrives sporting the same sensor.