The next generation flagship SUV EX90 is coming soon

Not long ago, Volvo Cars President and CEO Jim Rowan unveiled the technical highlights of the EX90, the next-generation all-electric flagship SUV, as he revealed Volvo's new-age safety vision.

For Volvo, the official confirmation of the EX90 kicks off a new generation of product launches after the official announcement of the full transformation of the all-electric brand.

Volvo is in desperate need of stronger electric vehicles

If you look at traditional European and American car companies, Volvo is more determined to transform into the field of new energy vehicles. Now, its sales of fuel car models have been fully transformed into a combination of hybrid and plug-in hybrid models, the overall fuel economy has been significantly improved.

However, it must be admitted that Volvo is currently selling hybrid and plug-in hybrid models where the SPA and CMA vehicle platform is relatively old, so there is no advantage to speak of in terms of intelligent network technology and driver assistance features compared to the new domestic forces.

In the field of electric vehicles, Volvo sells only two pure electric cars in China, XC40 BEV, and C40 BEV, both based on the original CMA architecture.

This oil-to-electric platform does not allow the battery to be laid flat on the entire chassis, so there is not much advantage in terms of range.

The XC40 BEV and C40 BEV will be just transitional products for Volvo's formal pure electric transition.

EX90: achieve vehicle 0 collision + 0 accident

Like Volkswagen has MEB, Toyota has e-TNGA, and GM's Otter Energy, Volvo's full transition to pure electric's biggest reliance is its new generation of pure electric platform SPA2, and the platform's first model is Volvo's new generation flagship EX90.

In the EX90, Volvo is likely to localize the deployment of its autonomous driving technology company Zenseact's high-grade autonomous driving software.

It also integrates two new configurations, Luminar Lidar and DUS driver sensing system, through which the whole vehicle safety is raised to a higher level.

In terms of hardware, the EX90 will be equipped with Luminar's most advanced 1550 NM wavelength LIDAR as standard. This radar can help the EX90 achieve a detection distance of 250 meters with only 10% reflectivity.

A 250-meter range means a response time of up to 7.5 seconds when driving at 120 km/h on the highway. In contrast, the Xiaopeng G9 and the Ideal L9, the new generation flagship models of the new force, use a 905 NM wavelength radar with lower detection and recognition accuracy.

In terms of software, Ride Pilot, an unsupervised, highly autonomous driving feature developed by Volvo-backed Zenseact, will also be available on the EX90. Ride Pilot will first be tested on the roads of California in the U.S. and will gradually be extended to other markets around the world.

Similar to related systems from Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Ride Pilot will allow drivers to read, entertain and socialize while in the car.

Volvo is one of the few companies in the world that can develop its own full-stack autonomous driving system. Through continuous research and development iterations and the accumulation of a large amount of data, Volvo's Ride Pilot can gradually unlock more scenarios and gradually evolve to L4.

Another highlight of the EX90 is the DUS in-car dual-camera driver sensing system that comes standard across the entire lineup. The system consists of a capacitive steering wheel and two cameras and is the only dual-camera driver-sensing system in the world so far.

The system collects information about the driver's status and identifies whether the driver is fatigued or drunk driving through a preset algorithm.

Once the driver's attention is distracted, Ride Pilot on the EX90 will take over the driving process and bring the driver to a safe area by reducing speed, braking slowly in the lane, and automatically putting on the double flashing lights to avoid traffic accidents to the greatest extent possible.

Volvo's electric vehicle strategy is not only SPA2

After EX90, Volvo should follow the past rhythm of pushing products to achieve the renewal of the 90 series, 60 series, and 40 series products.

By then, the new Volvo will be a competitive force in the market with its full integration of Android underlying system and secondary development at the car networking level, LIDAR equipped and continuously upgradable autonomous driving system, as well as the ability to compete with competitors in terms of range.

In addition, there is a bigger point to watch is whether Volvo will introduce Geely's SEA Vast architecture to launch a model with lower product positioning.

Currently, in addition to the Extreme Krypton 001, the smart Genie 1# has also become the second model of the SEA Vast architecture.

In the future, if Volvo can also use this already proven architecture to launch models to the market, it is expected to further lower the price of Volvo's entry-level models, which will help a lot in boosting the sales of Volvo cars.

After all, after basically reaching the scale of 800,000 annual sales, Volvo has set its goal of 1.2 million per year, which means that Volvo needs to find new sales pillars outside of its existing models.

But after Volvo develops pure electric and autonomous driving-related technologies, it also needs to work on replenishment energy technologies. Currently, the fast replenishment technology includes two kinds of supercharging and power exchange: the former is represented by Tesla and Xiaopeng, and the latter by Azera and Ningde Times.

So Volvo wants to achieve the layout of the whole series of electric vehicles, and choosing a fast replenishment technology route will also be the key. Because super-charging or power exchange will involve a large number of infrastructure layout, which is not only related to the investment of resources but also need time to accumulate.

Finally, whether Volvo, like Tesla, fully and completely transformed into a pure electric car business is still open to question. After all, for pure electric cars, the problems around the battery still have not been solved.

Keeping a part of the hybrid/plug-in hybrid models, before the world moves fully into the pure electric era, maybe the best and most secure choice.