Volvo Banks on Heritage for New V90
CARS.COM — With drivers worldwide embracing SUVs, why is Volvo rolling out something like the V90 wagon?
Volvo’s XC90 SUV is one of the best vehicles we’ve had come through our doors in a long time. It blew us away with how special it feels, how well it drives, how comfortable it is and how the little details in it surprise and delight us. We liked it so much, we named it our Best of 2016 award winner. Volvo can’t make enough of them — the plant is running three shifts flat-out, and still dealers are practically selling them off the delivery trucks.
Related: More 2016 Geneva International Motor Show Coverage
The short answer? European drivers. Big luxury wagons are still popular there, especially in Volvo’s home country of Sweden says Lars Lagstrom, the senior product manager for the company’s 90-series vehicles (that’s the S90 sedan, XC90 SUV and the new V90 wagon). “A lot of people prefer the lower loading height of a wagon, the lower step-in height,” he told us on the sidelines of the 2016 Geneva International Motor Show in Switzerland. “It’s easier to get in and out, or to put heavy things in back. Of course, you don’t get the higher seating position, but a lot of Europeans prefer to sit lower,” he said.
That demand, plus the heritage Volvo has in producing decades of very popular wagons, drove the company to craft a new one on the 90-series platform instead of relying on SUVs to carry the brand, as many luxury automakers have chosen to do.
The V90 will share the same powertrains as the S90, including two four-cylinder engines, one of which is both turbocharged and supercharged, the other a 400-horsepower plug-in hybrid. It also shares the same interior appointments, and while it doesn’t provide any more rear headroom than the sedan, it obviously has greater cargo capacity. The plug-in hybrid is designed so that the batteries do not intrude into the passenger space — there’s exactly as much passenger room in a V90 T6 as there is in a V90 T8 Hybrid. The T6’s deep underfloor storage compartment in the cargo area is used up by batteries, says Lagstrom, but passengers should not be inconvenienced in any other way.
There was serious debate as to whether or not the normal V90 wagon should come to the U.S., Lagstrom said, given that many competitors have dropped their luxury wagons. Gone from our shores are the BMW 5 Series wagon, the Audi A6 Avant and the Cadillac CTS wagon, and rumor has it that the next Mercedes-Benz E-Class wagon may be offered only in a kind of pumped up Subaru Outback/Audi Allroad-style version.
One Volvo spokesperson in Geneva confirmed that there actually will be a high-riding, plastic-cladded version of the V90 that will come to the U.S. as an off-road style wagon to replace the XC70. Volvo had to decide whether only to offer that version of the V90, or also to offer the plain-Jane wagon in the U.S. Having the latter segment largely to themselves swayed Volvo’s choice, Lagstrom said. The S90 is slated to arrive this summer, followed shortly by the V90 wagon.
