Volvo's V90 still offers an appealingly different way to go for buyers looking for a large luxury estate that's a little different, thinks Jonathan Crouch.

Ten Second Review

Volvo's V90 is a large luxury estate every bit as good as anything the German brands can bring you. It's luxurious, practical, spacious and stylish - and notably efficient now that it only comes in PHEV form. If you're shopping in this segment, you still need to consider it.

Background

There's nothing quite like a big, boxy Volvo estate car: it's the kind of product that defines this Swedish marque. Nor is it the kind of car this Scandinavian brand is quite yet going to leave behind as it redefines its product range under rejuvenated Chinese ownership. For proof of that, check out this car, the V90. This is the station wagon version of the now-discontinued S90 saloon and, like that model is a car based on the same sophisticated architecture as the company's award-winning XC90 luxury SUV. The V90 was first introduced back in 2016, remaining as Swedish as meatballs and as practical as ever. Into this decade, decade dwindled - so much that Volvo actually took the car off sale in 2023, but brought it back in mid-2024 in this PHEV form due to renewed customer demand.

Driving Experience

Because this V90 uses the same 'Scalable Product Architecture' as its XC90 SUV stablemate, it also uses some of the same engines too, which are all now of the petrol Plug-in Hybrid kind. Because diesel and mild hybrid petrol units have now been discarded, things now kick off with the T6 Twin Engine petrol/electric plug-in hybrid model. This delivers a 350hp total output including an 87hp electric boost, the combined total offering 350Nm of torque. The alternative is the T8 Twin Engine petrol/electric plug-in hybrid model. This offers 455hp and improves the T6's 5.5s 0-62mph time to 4.8s. Both the engines, as usual with the brand, are 2.0-litres and four cylinders in size. As before, all V90s will be ordered with smooth 8-speed auto transmission. On the move, you aren't served up anything that encourages much driving involvement - blame the rather vague steering for that - but in compensation, there's unruffled poise and exemplary refinement. You get supple standards of ride comfort from the soft suspension too and there's the option of rear air suspension if you want it. A standard 'Drive Mode Settings' driving dynamics system allows you to tailor throttle response, steering feel and auto gearshift timings to suit the way you want to drive. And if you do push on a bit, grip and traction are actually quite impressive and cornering bodyroll decently well controlled.

Design and Build

The V90 has a proud yet non-aggressive face, characterised by a concave grille - apparently a homage to the Volvo P1800 - that's home to the brand's distinctive 'Iron Mark' logo. The T-shaped 'Thor's Hammer' lights are recognisable from the XC90 and deliver a powerful sense of direction that makes this car unmistakable on the road. At the back, insytead of the usual boxy Volvo estate shape, there's a fashionably-sloping tailgate. Decorated with full LED-powered signature lighting and sequential turn indicators. Inside, you'll find beautiful finishing and plenty of leather, classy wood and glass. As with the XC90 luxury SUV, the dash features a massive tablet-like touch screen that plays a key role in creating an interior that is modern, spacious and uncluttered. Volvo's clearly put a lot of budget into driving up materials quality and this V90 gets soft leather and wood with handcrafted details, including diamond-cut controls for the start/stop button and volume control. You can specify seats with an exclusive tailored wool blend, there's a thumping premium Bowers & Wilkins surround sound system and there are double USB-C charging points in the rear. At the rear, there's up to 551-litres of luggage space up to the glassline (or 714-litres up to the roof). Those figures increase to 904-litres and 1,517-litres if you load up to the roof. Those are useful figures, though a little bit less than you'd get with a rival Mercedes E-Class estate competitor.

Market and Model

There's only one fully-stoocked spec level and prices start at just over the £62,000 mark for the entry-level T6 Plug-in Hybrid model. If you want the faster T8 Plug-in Hybrid variant, prices swell up towards the £71,000 mark, as you'd expect from a car in this class aiming to go up alongside full-sized executive segment rivals like BMW's 5 Series Touring, Audi's A6 Avant and Mercedes' E-Class Estate. Standard equipment includes a 13 speaker Harmon Kardon premium sound system, a 360-degree surround view camera, an air purifier, front LED fog lights, 4-zone electronic climate control, integrated sun curtains in the rear doors, illuminated aluminium tread plates and automatic LED headlights with active high beam. There's also roof rails, auto headlamps and wipers, leather-faced upholstery, heated front seats, a 12.3-inch instrument display, a 9-inch centre console portrait touchscreen and Volvo's 'Pilot Assist' semi-autonomous drive system with adaptive cruise control. The electronically controlled air suspension has a choice of five modes, including one where the driver is free to tailor the settings to his or her personal taste. V90 safety gear includes a run off-road protection package which tightens seatbelts and activates energy-absorbing technology in the seats when the car detects challenging terrain ahead. Another system is the auto-braking feature, which cuts in if a driver pulls out in front of on coming traffic. Plus the V90 also includes large animal detection - a system capable of detecting large animals such as elk, horses or moose, night or day. 

Cost of Ownership

The T6 petrol plug-in hybrid model delivers up to 18g/km of CO2, up to 352.6mpg on the combined cycle and up to 54.1 miles of EAER-rated pure electric driving range. The T8 petrol plug-in hybrid model delivers up to 20g/km of CO2, up to 313.4mpg on the combined cycle and up to 52.2 miles of EAER-rated pure electric driving range. What else? Residual values? They're key in this segment of course and you'd expect those of a big, relatively expensive Volvo luxury large estate to lag severely behind the kind of figures you could realise in a rival BMW or Mercedes. You'd be wrong though. The V90 has turned around Volvo's performance in the Executive sector when it comes to depreciation. To the point where independent experts reckon that after owning a typical B4 model for the usual three year/60,000 mile ownership period, you'd get between 39 and 41% of your original purchase price back, depending in the trim level chosen. That's pretty close to the kind of return you'd get from a rival Mercedes E-Class Estate.

Summary

So, how to sum up? Well the V90 has always been a different kind of large Volvo estate, but some of its attributes are reassuringly familiar. Things like class-leading safety, solid build quality and the feeling that, were you to buy it, this model would probably out-last you. All are classic Volvo virtues. What's different from previous large Volvo station wagons though, is the level of sophistication that's been brought to bear in terms of engineering and connectivity. Does it matter that this car doesn't provide the one thing you might expect from a large Volvo estate: class-leading carriage capacity? We don't think so. For one thing, it's been a long time since any of the brand's big station wagons actually offered that, despite boxy looks that suggested otherwise. What's important is that this car is big enough for those who want a luxurious conveyance for antiques and grandfather clocks. But is now also smart enough to interest those who previously wouldn't have seen themselves as 'Volvo people', folk who simply want a more stylish way to travel to Chamonix or transport the family Labrador.