It's early days with Volvo's flagship electric SUV, but the luxury of its space and the delightful versatility are winning hearts and minds. Even with the rear seats upright, there's space for a family of five's gear for a weekend away. It's nice to know there's huge performance on tap, but more importantly, the efficiency is okay. So far, so good.
The arrival of Volvo's EX90 has triggered almost as much McNamara family excitement as another Scandinavian resident, clad in red, who pilots a chariot infinitely faster than even this 680-horsepower electric car. Why? Because this flagship SUV has seven seats and is dripping with clever, family-friendly touches. Case in point: to adjust the rearmost seats, you press buttons in either the boot or the rear door housing. Whether you need to load a child from the front, or cargo from the rear, you can get the perfect layout with a fingertip.
View Price on AmazonOur car is in Ultra spec, offering a black, tan or this light-colored 'Dawn' interior, trimmed in a mix of recycled, synthetic and pine resin bio materials that somehow ends up looking and feeling like leather. Appropriately, it will suffer our biological warfare over the next six months; I'll be intrigued to see how it copes. If the interior is worryingly light, the $895 Mulberry Red paint is excessively dark – until it catches the sun. Then, blocky brown shifts to sparkling dark red, and it looks magnificent.
The EX90 range kicks off at $73,160 for the 333-horsepower single-motor, rear-drive variant with 350 miles of range and Core trim. That looks instantly less expensive next to Volvo's $605 costlier plug-in hybrid XC90, the EX90's sister car whose origin was well over a decade ago. Plus trim ($80,160) adds a head-up display, Bose sound system and cabin air purifier, but our $93,860 Ultra edition also lumps in an electrochromatic panoramic roof and posh seats with massage and ventilation.
We've stepped over the 456-horsepower Twin Motor variant in favor of Twin Motor Performance. This $4,300 upgrade – only available on Ultra spec – throws another 224 horsepower into the mix and bludgeons 1.3 seconds off the 0-60mph sprint, cutting it to a mere 4.2 seconds. At any speed, acceleration is – frankly – silly. From standstill, the colossal 870 lb-ft of torque threatens to overpower the steering; the girls love the way it pushes them back in their seats.
Source: autoexpress.co.uk
