Introducing The New Volvo EX60 SUV

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The EX90 was Volvo’s first blank sheet electric vehicle and mapped out the road ahead for the company. It was a fully digital vehicle built on Volvo’s modular electric vehicle platform that is controlled by a completely new vehicle control system programmed completely in house at Volvo.

The launch was bumpy, with software bugs plaguing early EX90 owners, and Volvo responded with an all hands on deck effort to smash software bugs. Their hard work translated to a steady cadence of over-the-air updates pushed out to owners to stabilize the software stack, an upgraded Nvidia Orin computer for all EX90s, and apologized to owners for the growing pains.

After a painful entry into the world of software-defined electric vehicles, Volvo believes it has earned its place in the world of electric vehicles and is back at the plate with the all new Volvo EX60 SUV. The mid-sized sedan is aimed at the heart of the top selling vehicle segment in the world and they believe it marks the start of a new era of prosperity for the Swedish automotive manufacturer.

Disclaimer: Volvo paid for the author’s travel and accommodations to attend this event.

A Groundbreaking Software Experience

The Volvo EX60 is built on the 800 volt SPA3 platform which brings their scale to bear on what they expect to be a high-volume electric vehicle.

On top of its SPA3 modular electric vehicle platform, the Volvo EX60 will ship with a refined version of their bottom up “superset” software stack that they’re now calling HuginCore. It integrates all of the primary systems in the vehicle and was built completely in house by Volvo’s software team. In addition to a modern user interface, Volvo has already demonstrated the value of and their ability to build and push out regular over-the-air updates, delivering what looks like it could be one of the best EVs experiences of the year.

On the user facing side of things, the Volvo EX60 boasts Google’s Android Automotive operating system with Google’s Gemini AI fully integrated into the UI. This promise is to be a disruptive differentiator for the legacy automotive brand with the ability to interact with the driver in natural conversation. This could be anything from talking through the details of a road trip to finding an address, much like Tesla with its integrated Grok AI.

Gemini has full access to the car’s onboard cameras so you can talk natively to it about what you’re seeing, asking it about places you drive past or digging into the latest news. It was designed to be both functional and entertaining, with the ability to read the user manual for the EX60, answering questions about the car itself or scouring the web to look up niche facts.

Volvo is rolling out a refined version of their bottom-up software solution in EX60. They’re now calling their unified software stack “master” HuginCore and they expect it to underpin all future vehicles. We spoke to Volvo Cars’ chief engineer Anders Bell, who confirmed that they will also be rolling these updates out to all Volvo cars running Google’s AOS.

All told, about 2.5 million Volvo cars dating back to 2021 will get the updated HuginCore software stack via an over-the-air update that will bring Google’s Gemini to them all. That’s a huge accomplishment for Volvo and shows how they are not only designing exciting software for future vehicles, but that they have truly laid a foundation in their vehicles that lets them continue to improve over time.

Anders Bell told us they are also taking this approach moving forward, designing the vehicles and onboard computers to stand the test of time. They must support current software and have the right amount of connectivity, processing power, storage, and bandwidth to support future updates. Deciding today what specs future software will need is a challenge, but it is one Bell is clearly excited about.

Core to the infotainment experience is Qualcomm’s 8255 CPU that gives the Volvo EX60 ultra-fast processing and makes for an extremely responsive touchscreen.

A Zero-Compromise Electric Vehicle

The Volvo EX60 SUV comes with class leading 400-mile range in its fully kitted out P12 variant. The impressive range is supercharged with fast charging capability that brings it from 10 to 80% in just 19 minutes on a 400 kW charger. It was designed from the bottom up to be an electric vehicle and features a fully integrated battery pack that uses the battery as a key component of the structure of the vehicle.

As a midsize SUV, the Volvo EX60 is aimed directly at the top selling vehicle segment in the US and much of the world. It seats five, with a spacious cargo bay behind the folding rear seats, with everything wrapped in the high quality trims you expect from Volvo.

It will be offered in three powertrain variants with different battery packs for each, delivering 310, 320, and 400 miles of range per charge. Starting around $60,000, it gives buyers looking for a luxury electric vehicle experience a very compelling offer to consider.

The fully electric EX60 SUV is an improvement on its combustion counterpart in just about every single way. It has plenty of range for anything you can throw at it, charges fast enough so that you will never be waiting for the car, and delivers a best-in-class cabin experience with Gemini built into the infotainment system.

Sliding into Volvo’s lineup next to the best-selling XC60, it turns the table on buyers, who instead of asking ‘why should I go electric?’ will be wondering ‘why wouldn’t I go electric?’

“With this car, we remove all remaining obstacles for going electric,” Håkan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo Cars said. “This fantastic new car is also a testament of what we are capable of at Volvo Cars, with an all-new product architecture introducing new key technologies — mega casting, cell-to-body and core computing.”

Range For Days

The Volvo EX60 with the large 117 kWh battery that comes with the P12 variant boasts 400 miles of range per charge. It sets a new bar for fast charging at Volvo with the ability to add up to 173 miles of range in just 10 minutes on a 400 kW fast charger. Said another way, it adds two hours of high speed highway driving in the time it takes you to run in and grab a coffee.

They’re integrating AI to optimize battery charging thanks to new tech from one of Volvo’s portfolio companies, Breathe Battery Technologies (BBT). Volvo and BBT ran tests on the tech and saw improvements of 15-30% (link to whitepaper).

Charging has been supercharged in the EX60, thanks to the native NACS charging port. The EX60 will be the first Volvo to ship with a NACS charging port, making it easy for owners to tap into the grid at even more locations. Foundational to their charging strategy, Volvo EX60 owners will be able to roll up to any of the more than 25,000 Tesla Superchargers for a sip.

That’s a huge win for EX60 buyers, who won’t be shackled to adapters for the life of their vehicles. Charging will be easy and accessible, eliminating the stress from what should be one of the easiest parts of EV ownership.

The battery pack in all configurations is fully integrated into the megacasting of the vehicle with a cell-to-body design that was done completely in-house. Integrating the battery pack directly into the structure of the vehicle eliminates unnecessary weight and optimizes the volume of the battery within the vehicle, translating to a 20% reduction in pack weight.

Overall

The Volvo EX60 SUV is positioned to be the perfect electric vehicle for Volvo to produce at scale for the masses. Its attractive specs are sure to help it secure strong footing with customers globally though a more moderate reaction in the US is likely due to the tapering off of EV purchase credits and an overall cooling in sentiment towards EVs.

If Volvo can deliver on what it showed the world at tonight’s unveiling, bundled with the immersive, responsive, and useful user interface with their software, it could be a disruptive product that sees Volvos in the driveways and garages of far more people around the world.

For more information about the Volvo EX60 SUV, head over to the official Volvo launch website.