Volvo teases ES90 – all-electric successor to S90 luxury sedan to arrive late 2025

WERE you wondering whether Volvo was turning its back on the humble sedan?

We wouldn’t blame you, the XC and EX prefixes that are Volvo-speak for 'SUV' now dominate the Volvo lineup, with the S60, V60 and C40 the only exceptions (and let's face it, the C40 is really just an SUV cosplaying as a hatchback).

But we’ve got good news: a three-box Volvo is back on the menu, with Volvo letting slip its first teaser of the ES90 large sedan this week - a spiritual successor for the S90.

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Due to make its global debut next March in Sweden, Volvo’s Australian arm has already confirmed the ES90 will arrive in showrooms in late 2025. As for what to expect, no details have been revealed besides the general outline of the new car’s profile – and the fact it will be electric.

Under Volvo’s new nomenclature, the ES90 stands for Electric Sedan, with the numerics indicating it will sit alongside the newly-released EX90 large SUV in terms of size. The ES90 will use the EX90’s SPA2 platform, and will also follow its high-riding sibling as the second Volvo vehicle to make use of the company’s newly-developed Volvo Cars Superset modular architecture.

It may also be the last Volvo to use SPA2 underpinnings, with the next model in Volvo’s product plan, the EX60, to debut the company’s all-new SPA3 scalable architecture.

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Comparing the silhouette presented by Volvo's teaser with images of the outgoing S90, we can see that Volvo's flagship sedan will retain its distinctive C-pillar with its generous quarterglass, though the transition from the rear windscreen to the bootlid is substantially softer than before.

The rear doors also appear to have grown markedly to become as long - perhaps even longer - than the front doors, while flush-fit door handles blend smoothly with the sheetmetal. At the front, there appears to still be a good distance between the front axle line and the front door, however it looks like frontal overhang has undergone a sizable chop.

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The ES90's platform twin, the EX90

Tech specs are still far from being officially announced for the ES90 but expect a similar fit-out to the EX90, which offers a massive 111kWh battery pack and a dual-motor powertrain producing 380kW and a massive 910Nm. Performance stats include an impressive 4.9-second zero-to-hundred blast, and a maximum range of 590km on the WLTP cycle for the EX90, and with less frontal area and potentially less weight, we’d expect the ES90 to improve on those metrics.

In other markets the EX90 will be offered with a less powerful 300kW/770Nm twin-motor configuration with a 600km max range, which would also be a likely candidate for the ES90.

However, though Volvo has just recently walked back on its goal to go all-electric by 2030 and will instead continue offering plug-in hybrids for the forseeable, don’t expect the ES90 to arrive with a petrol-electric powertrain option: the SPA2 platform it’s built on is EV-specific, with no provision for combustion engines.