Volvo’s Flagship Gets a Big Do-Over, Major Changes After Botched Launch
The EX90 three-row EV SUV’s launch was marked by major problems and owner backlash.
Erik JohnsonWriterManufacturerPhotographerSep 25, 2025
004 2025 Volvo EX90 Twin Motor Performance Ultra first test
The Volvo EX90 three-row electric SUV was supposed to slingshot the Swedish brand into its all-electric future, the one where it promised to sell only EVs by 2030. But then the EV market cooled, U.S. policies became far less favorable to EVs, and the EX90 itself suffered an ignominious launch filled with an entomology department’s worth of software bugs.
Now, just one model year after that launch, the EX90 is being thoroughly updated to potentially deliver the experience such a flagship model promises. First, a new central computer has been adopted, a powerful Nvidia Drive AGX Orin unit that centralizes many functions and enables adoption of more advanced automated driving and AI functions.
The good news is owners of 2025 EX90s will get an upgrade to this computer for free via a service appointment, which should hopefully help fix many of the software ills that plagued their electric SUVs. The bad news is that 2025 owners won’t get the biggest upgrade: the move from a 400-volt electrical system to an 800-volt one. This is the voltage some of the fastest-charging EVs on the American market use. (Lucid runs its cars at 926 volts and Chinese automaker BYD has a 1,000-volt architecture.)
032 2025 Volvo EX90 Twin Motor Performance Ultra first test
In MotorTrend testing, it took 36 minutes to charge the 2025 EX90 from 5 to 80 percent and another 24 minutes to reach 100 percent. It took 15 minutes to add 94 miles of range. Those are all back of the pack these days, but we expect the 2026 EX90 to make substantial improvements—Volvo says it now can reclaim up to 150 miles of range in 10 minutes. (For reference, the fastest-charging EV we’ve tested, the Porsche Taycan, added 180 miles in 15 minutes.) Other changes for 2026 include an automatic emergency call function for the Emergency Stop Assist system, which will bring the car to a halt if the driver becomes incapacitated or otherwise ignores the car’s warnings to pay attention or put their hands on the wheel. The automatic emergency steering system has improved night performance and hands-free parallel parking has also been added. The EX90 includes all hardware to theoretically make it Level 4 autonomous—so, completely unsupervised—including a prominent lidar array above the windshield, but officials would not provide an updated timeline as to when that capability would be unlocked.
During a roundtable interview this week, chief engineering and technology officer Anders Bell stated several times how sorry Volvo was for the botched EX90’s launch, and that the company is committed to winning back the confidence of its customers. The 2026 EX90’s updates are actions behind those words, but only time will tell if the broken trust can be repaired.
Erik Johnson
Erik Johnson fell in love with cars before he could talk, carrying that passion through graduation from the University of Michigan. He’s led digital content for Automobile and Car and Driver, and now oversees print and digital content for MotorTrend. He still pinches himself every day.