Volvo officially unveils its newest EV on March 5 – it’s the 2026 ES 90, the sedan version of the new EX90 electric SUV – and is giving us a few teaser shots and a look at its underlying technology as an advance treat.
Like its SUV sibling, the ES90s is, essentially a passenger-carrying computer. Volvo calls the duo “software defined” vehicles.
They are built on Volvo’s new “Superset tech stack” of software and hardware modules for EVs. Superset permits constant updating and, in Volvo’s words, “means software now replaces hardware as the primary driver of innovation…”
The Superset stack also makes it easy for vehicles built around it to get hardware upgrades: Volvo says owners of the EX90, which went on sale in late 2024, will receive a no-charge upgrade to the same ultra-fast central computer chip that the ES90 will use.
Faster, Farther
There’s some “regular” EV technology to brag about as well. The ES 90 is the first Volvo built 800-volt electrical architecture. That means it can charge crazy quick. Just 20 minutes for a 10% to 80% “refill” when using a 350kw DC fast charger at its peak output. The EX 90, with 400-volt architecture, maxes out at 250 kw and hour when plugged in to a DC fast charger and takes just over 30 minutes for the same 10% to 80% battery recharge.
(Volvo’s early, but certainly not first, with an 800-volt system for EVs. Porsche launched it with the 2020 Taycan, followed by Audi’s e-tron GT, and EVs from Hyundai, Kia, Genesis and Lucid. It also is used on GM’s Hummer EV and Tesla’s Cybertruck.)
The speedier charging only works, though, with DC fast chargers. At home, with 240-volt charging, the ES90’s battery pack still will take hours to replenish, same as any EV with a large battery pack.
Volvo hasn’t yet disclosed the capacity of the new EV’s battery, but the EX 90, built on the same SPA2 platform, has a 111-kwH pack and we’d expect the same for the sedan.
Thanks to the mysteries of electricity, higher voltage also means lighter electrical components, like the traction motors and wiring throughout. That results in a lighter car, and in EVs lighter means more range and quicker acceleration.
On the European fuel efficiency test cycle, the ES90 gets rated at up to 700 kilometers (430 miles) of range. That will drop considerably under the fuel efficiency testing for EVS used in the U.S., but the North American version of the ES90 still should end up with 350 or as bit more miles in range. The EX 90, which is heavier and less streamlined, is EPA-rated at up to 310 miles.
A Car? A Computer?
No. It’s a carputer!
TheGreenCarGuy isn’t a tech maven, so apologies in advance if we’re not able to simplify all this.
The ES90 is Volvo’s first model equipped with “dual NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Orin” configuration. That makes it Volvo’s most powerful vehicle ever – in terms of on-board computing power.
NVIDIA is a Silicon Valley-based software and computer chip developer and DRIVE is an operating system on a chip used for autonomous cars and driver assistance systems. It uses “deep learning,” meaning it can improve itself as it electronically takes in information. AGX is NVIDIA’s shorthand for “autonomous machines.” Orin signifies the DRIVE AGX generation (they include Maxwell, Pascal, Volta, Blackwell and Orin, among others.)
So, the NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Orin is a system on a chip that is the main computer for intelligent vehicle. It runs, among other things, a vhicle’s infotainment, driver assistance and active safety systems and improves its performance as it “learns” things like driver preferences for seating positions, driving habits and, presumably, route preferences and daily traffic patterns.
Volvo says the system will allow the ES90 and other vehicles equipped with it to “raise the bar on safety and overall performance through data, software and AI (artificial intelligence).”
The Orin system can compute at something like 508 trillion operations per second.
More to Come
We’ll have more about the 2026 ES 90 after the March 5 unveiling in Stockholm. (We don’t get to go, though. We’ll be watching via an on-line livestream.)
