Volvo EX90 Malaysia Review: A Flagship Family EV That Feels Unfinished

The Volvo EX90 is the Swedish brand’s latest and greatest SUV offering, serving as the electric equivalent of the popular Volvo XC90. Priced at over RM400,000 in Malaysia, we wanted to see if this premium EV truly lives up to its promise as a flagship 7-seater family EV.

We recently took it on a long road trip from Kuala Lumpur to Penang and Kota Bharu, and here’s what we liked and didn’t like about the EX90.

What we liked about the Volvo EX90 Ultra Twin

First things first, what are the key features to love about the EX90 Ultra Twin? It’s a good-looking SUV that is essentially the bigger brother of the EX30. It features a minimalistic design with a flat front fascia with Volvo’s modern Iron Mark and diagonal band.

At first glance, you might think it’s smaller than the XC90. In reality, this EV is actually bigger, measuring more than 5 meters long and almost 2 meters wide. The coolest and most standout exterior feature is its dynamic Thor’s Hammer headlights. When night falls, the horizontal pixelated daytime running lights mechanically split to reveal its Pixel HD headlamps.

On the inside, the EX90’s “software-defined” approach results in a rather minimalistic interior. It features a tablet-style 14.5-inch infotainment display with Google built-in that supports wireless Apple CarPlay, a letterbox-style 9-inch instrument cluster, and a head-up display.

Being a 7-seater, it has three rows of seats in a 2-3-2 configuration. The second row 40:20:40 seats are mechanically adjustable and it offers a one-handed tilt and slide function for quick access to the third row.

Thanks to the double-glazed windows, the cabin is noticeably quiet, and the ride is composed and comfortable whether you’re on the highway, city streets, or even kampung roads.

The air suspension excels at absorbing bumps and imperfections, and you can adjust the suspension settings from the touch screen. It’s more agile and definitely drives better than many of the new electric MPVs on the market.

While the EX90 is capable of accelerating from 0-100km in less than 5 seconds, power delivery feels smooth and gradual, which your passengers will definitely appreciate.

By default, the acceleration pedal feels like a normal car, allowing you to coast freely. If you prefer a more EV-like experience, there’s the option to enable one-pedal driving for stronger regenerative braking, as well as an auto one-pedal mode that gradually increases regen in traffic.

The EX90’s cabin is a great place to spend time in. The leather-free Nordico seats are well-designed and supportive, with extensive adjustability for lumbar and lower thigh support. On our over-10-hour return journey from the East Coast, the massaging and ventilated seat features were a huge bonus. Once you’ve had ventilated seats on a long drive, you’ll start to miss them on every other car without it.

The sound system is another key highlight on the EX90 as the 25-speaker 1610W Bowers & Wilkins setup gave us an epic and immersive audio experience like no other. You can hear the clear separation of each instrument and we didn’t notice any rattling even from loose objects on stored in the door bins.

We were also impressed by the Pilot Assist with Steering Assist, which is Volvo’s adaptive cruise control with lane centering. While Volvo has taken away the ability to adjust the distance to the car in front, we had no complaints. Its default “auto” setting works perfectly well, maintaining just the right distance and anticipating corners surprisingly well. The lane change assist is also a great driver assist feature, performing smooth and confident lane changes when it detects a safe gap after you flick the indicator stalk.

The Missed Opportunities

When you’re paying flagship money for a 7-seater SUV, a few things really start to stick out. While the car is fantastic on many fronts, we were surprised by some glaring omissions and design choices that felt like a step backwards compared to its entry-level sibling, the EX30 and the combustion-based XC90.

While it has a massive panoramic glass roof which provides an airy feel, it is odd that it lacks built-in sunshade. In addition, there are also no grab handles which makes getting in and out for the third row a bit tricky for adults.

When it comes to storage options, the EX90 offers limited options beyond the open lower storage area between the front seats. The glovebox isn’t big enough to store an iPad which is surprising for a large SUV.

In addition to the wireless charging pad and two cupholders, there are no spare compartments on the “floating” center console to store smaller items like access cards, SmartTag, or a second phone. There is a deep, two-level storage compartment below the armrest, but the opening is too small for our liking.

Even for the second row, all you get is an armrest and a cubby space in the door panel to hold bottles. You do get four aircon vents with climate controls and two USB-C ports, and that’s pretty much it.

There’s also no privacy sunshade for the rear windows, a feature which should have been included as standard for a premium family SUV.

Similar to the EX30, Volvo doesn’t show any efficiency figures while driving. Despite having a head-up display and an instrument cluster, you won’t know how much energy you’re consuming (kWh per 100km) at a glance. The only way to find out your current energy consumption is via the “Range and Trip” app on the infotainment display. This is not only annoying but also a huge distraction for EV drivers.

On the software side, the “Driving Journal,” one of our favorite app features from the EX30, is listed as not available for our region on the EX90. We also found the Tyre Pressure Monitoring System to be a letdown, as it only provides a basic “OK” status without giving you individual pressure readings for each tyre.

Small details like the steering wheel controls lacking backlit buttons and the driver’s side door having only two window switches instead of the standard four felt like strange cost-cutting measures on a flagship EV. Similar to what we’ve seen on recent VW EVs, you have to toggle between the front and rear windows with a separate button.

And then there’s the third row seats situation. As we’ve highlighted in our first impressions, the two extra seats at the back are better suited for children. You can fit adults back there but it is only good for short trips. The consolation is that there are plenty of ways to fold down the third row quickly through buttons beside the rear doors, the boot and also from the touch screen panel.

In terms of cargo space, the EX90 offers 324L of storage with all seats up. If more space is needed, the storage expands to 697L with the third-row seats folded and up to 1,316L with both the third and second rows folded. To make loading heavy items easier, you can lower the boot level of the EX90 since it has air suspension.

There is also a compartmentalized 46L frunk under the hood. You can’t put any luggage in here but it is useful for storing smaller items, including the Type 2 charging cable and your portable charger.

Flawed Flagship?

Our biggest concerns, however, is more towards the advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Volvo claims the EX90 is designed to be “the safest car ever made,” but the systems felt less consistent than we expected.

When we drove too close to the vehicle in front, there were no early pre-collision warnings, and on two occasions, we encountered phantom braking in slow-moving traffic despite having ample space from the car in front. The blind spot warning system also wasn’t consistent in providing audible alerts, prompting us to have doubts about its reliability.

The lack of constant beepings might be good for some drivers, but it left us wondering whether the ADAS was fully looking out for us. In contrast, the EX30’s systems felt more proactive, with clear visual alerts that gave us more confidence in its abilities. Even if you compare the on-screen ADAS settings for both Volvo EVs, you don’t get as many options on the EX90.

The much-touted Park Pilot Assist, which we were keen to try, is not even available at launch. The self-parking feature for the EX90 is listed as “coming later via OTA.”

The Volvo EX90 is also equipped with LiDAR on the roof which can detect pedestrians, vehicles, and road hazards up to 250 metres away. The hump on the roof is intended to enable L3 autonomous driving. For now, however, there’s no active feature in Malaysia yet, as it is merely used to study our local road conditions according to Volvo. So essentially, the hardware is there, and we just have to wait for it to be enabled sometime in the future once software and local regulations are ready.

For an SUV this size, we wished it had blind spot monitoring cameras like those found on Hyundai, Kia, and even Tesla. The side mirrors are equipped with two cameras, including a rear-facing unit, which we hope can be enabled for blind spot view via a future over-the-air (OTA) update.

When you look at its ICE counterpart, the XC90 looks like a more complete and premium package. It comes with essential features such as grab handles, an electronic sunshade for the glass roof, privacy curtains for the rear windows, dedicated buttons for all power windows and media controls, and it even comes with the beautiful Orrefors crystal gear shifter. The EX90, on the other hand, feels like it has a lot of catching up to do, especially with its software and hardware.

Performance, Range and Charging

To recap on the specs, the Volvo EX90 comes in a single Ultra Twin Motor Performance variant in Malaysia, priced at RM442,888. The dual-motor AWD setup puts out a combined 380kW (509hp) and 910Nm of torque. That’s good to propel this nearly 2.8 tonne SUV from 0-100km/h in just 4.9 seconds, up to an electronically limited top speed of 180km/h.

Volvo EX90 records about 21-24kWh per 100km for highway drives

The EX90 Ultra Twin is equipped with a 111 kWh 400V NMC battery (107 kWh usable), promising a claimed WLTP-rated range of up to 623 km. From our highway road tests, we average about 21kWh to 24kWh per 100km, which translates to a realistic real-world range of about 450-500km on a single charge.

We got about 15-17kWh per 100km for town and city driving with the Volvo EX90

However, the EX90 can be efficient for town and city driving as we managed to get an energy efficiency of 15-17kWh per 100km. For daily commutes especially for grocery and school runs, it is possible to get close to the claimed 600km WLTP-rated figures.

Nevertheless, the large battery should provide more than enough range for most owners to travel from KL to Johor Bahru, Penang, or Kota Bharu on a single charge, with extra range to spare.

We charged the EX90 at ChargEV’s 320kW DC Charger at Berjaya Times Square and achieved a peak charging rate of 160kW. To get close to the advertised 250kW peak charging rate, you’ll need a high-powered DC charger that can deliver over 600A. For most high-powered DC chargers in the country, a 10-80% top-up takes about 40 minutes.

If you’re not in a hurry, it supports AC charging up to 11kW. For a premium car with such a big battery, we also wished it had a higher 22kW on-board AC charger, which would cut the charging time by half.

Another missed opportunity is the omission of Vehicle-to-Load (V2L). This is a genuinely useful EV feature for powering appliances during camping trips or as a backup power source during a blackout.

The EX90 feels like an unfinished product

So, what’s our final verdict? The Volvo EX90 has several standout features, and we really like the driving experience and the sound system. However, given its high price and the number of missed opportunities, it faces stiff competition from a new wave of premium Chinese electric MPVs such as the Denza D9, Zeekr 009, and Xpeng X9.

While they are a different body style, these rivals are incredibly capable and practical family movers. In addition, they offer more tech and gadgets, including built-in fridges, fold-down screens to entertain rear passengers, and luxurious captain’s seats.

The biggest issues we have with the EX90 are the missing features, the inconsistent ADAS experience, and questionable design choices which seem to have been made in the name of cost savings. To make matters worse, several features that should be available at the point of purchase such as Park Assist and Driving Journal, will only arrive later through a software update.

But if you don’t fancy boxy MPVs, there aren’t that many three-row fully electric SUVs in the market. The other contenders in the segment are Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV and the Kia EV9.