Geely Ignites Volvo’s Electric Future: Driving The EX90 In India

When Volvo lets you loose with its new flagship electric SUV on the wide-open highways around Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan, the first thing you notice isn't the minimalist dashboard or the Scandinavian air of restraint Volvo built its reputation on. It's how quickly this ‘frankly huge’ three-row SUV disappears underneath you, and how much of its character feels borrowed from somewhere else entirely — Shanghai, not Gothenburg.

That isn't a criticism. It might be the best thing about the car.

A Chinese Car Wearing A Swedish Badge

The EX90 succeeds the much-loved XC90 and, on the surface, retains Volvo's familiar Scandinavian minimalism. But spend ten minutes inside and the influence of Geely — which has owned Volvo Cars since 2010 and shares platforms and major components with it — becomes obvious. A massive 14-inch central touchscreen dominates the dashboard, paired with a comically small digital instrument cluster tucked behind the wheel, exactly the layout favoured by China's newest crop of premium electric brands.

The headlights carry 1.3 million pixels apiece and can individually dim their beam to avoid dazzling up to five oncoming vehicles at once, the kind of showy, camera-and-radar-heavy tech that has become a Chinese automotive calling card.

Volvo still designs in Gothenburg and builds the EX90 in Torslanda, and it still answers to its own board, but there's no denying that China is quietly setting the design and technology agenda for what a premium electric car should look and feel like in 2026, and the EX90 wears that influence proudly.

Numbers That Actually Matter On Indian Roads

Strip away the philosophy and the EX90 is a genuinely quick, genuinely long-legged electric SUV. The India-spec car, badged ‘Twin Motor’ and expected to arrive here as a single, fully-loaded ‘T5 Twin Motor Ultra’ trim, pairs two motors on the front and rear axles for a combined 456 hp (335 kW) of power and 670 Newton Metres of torque, good for a claimed 0-100 kmph sprint in 5.5 seconds. Volvo India will cap top speed to just 180 kilometres per hour, not just to save range but also as a safety metric — and with a top legal speed limit on just a few Expressways topping out at 120 kph, 180 is more than enough.

The bigger story is range. Volvo claims 625 km on the WLTP cycle and 724 km under India's own ICAT test protocol, though a realistic figure closer to 500 km is what most owners should expect day to day, comfortably enough for a Delhi to Agra/Chandigarh/Jaipur round trip without needing to hunt for a charger.

That comes courtesy of a 106 kWh CATL lithium-ion battery pack riding on an 800V electrical architecture, which Volvo says can add 10-80 per cent charge in as little as 22 minutes on a 350 kilowatt DC fast charger, though such chargers remain vanishingly rare in India today. There are, however, quite a few 180 kW chargers being established on Indian highways right now, and the number is increasing day after day, so a Kashmir to Kanyakumari trip on the EX90 is not a pipe dream.

On the road, the acceleration is genuinely physics-defying for something this large. This is a car that reaches triple-digit speeds without the driver quite registering it, thanks to a cabin so well insulated that wind and road noise barely intrude even at speed.

Despite a hefty 2,725 kg kerb weight — over 600 kg, the weight of a family, more than the outgoing petrol XC90's roughly 2,080 kg — the dual-chamber air suspension and an ‘active chassis’ that recalibrates itself over 500 times a second do a convincing job of disguising both the bulk and the height.

In its Soft setting, the suspension glides over small and medium potholes with the sort of composure Indian roads demand, though bigger craters still thump through. That said, avoid the ‘Firm’ mode until you are on a well-surfaced Himalayan road, because you will feel even the smallest pebble. A one-pedal-drive mode and four levels of regenerative braking, including an Auto setting that reads traffic through the car's ADAS sensors, make bumper-to-bumper driving genuinely relaxing rather than a chore.

The One Thing Volvo Got Wrong

Here's the curious part. For all its Chinese-flavoured hardware, the EX90 hasn't borrowed the one Chinese idea that would have made it a genuinely great Indian luxury car: an obsession with the rear seat. Brands like Geely's own Zeekr and Lynk & Co have built their premium reputations around pampering rear-seat passengers, yet the EX90 remains stubbornly driver-focused, lavishing its most indulgent touch — front massage seats — on the person behind the wheel rather than the person being driven.

Maybe this is a nod to the fact that the car is ostensibly designed and engineered in Europe. But in a segment where Indian buyers routinely have someone else doing the driving, that's a genuine miss, and a slightly sharper focus on rear comfort is really all that stands between this car and being close to perfect for our market.

Price And Verdict

Volvo India is expected to launch the EX90 on October 12, 2026, alongside the ES90 sedan, arriving as a completely built-up import. Pricing should start at roughly INR 1.5 crore ex-showroom, comfortably into BMW iX and Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV territory, with on-road prices for fully loaded units nudging past INR 1.8 crore depending on the state. That is a formidable sum of money, but the EX90 largely justifies it: it's blisteringly quick, quiet enough to make you forget it's moving, rides well enough for Indian roads on the right suspension setting, and carries enough real-world range to make long-distance electric travel feel unremarkable rather than anxious. Volvo has essentially built a very good Chinese premium EV and put a Swedish badge on it — and, love or hate what that says about the state of the global car industry, the result is one of the most complete flagship electric SUVs about to land in India.