Volvo EX90: What to Expect From Volvo’s Flagship Electric SUV Ahead of August 18 India Launch

Volvo’s flagship electric SUV is finally circling a launch date for India, with multiple auto outlets pointing to August 18, 2026, though a few reports have floated August 19 or later in the month instead. Either way, the EX90 is close, and it’s arriving as a genuinely important car for Volvo in India, not just another SUV added to the lineup.

This will be Volvo’s third fully electric model here, joining the EX30 and EC40. But where those two are compact, city-friendly EVs, the EX90 is the big one. It’s built on a dedicated EV platform as the electric counterpart to the XC90, Volvo’s long-running flagship SUV and one of the more trusted names in the seven-seat luxury space.

What the EX90 is replacing

Volvo has been selling petrol and plug-in hybrid XC90s in India for years, and the EX90 is effectively where that flagship nameplate is headed next. It shares some visual DNA with the XC90 but Volvo has clearly tried to give it its own identity. The nose gets a blanked-off, body-coloured panel instead of a traditional grille, with the badge sitting front and centre, and the pixel-style LED daytime running lights hide the actual headlamps until they’re switched on. It’s a small design trick, but it’s the kind of thing that gets noticed the first time you see one drive past.

Battery, range, and power: what’s expected

Globally, the EX90 runs a 111 kWh battery pack with a dual-motor, all-wheel-drive setup, and that’s expected to carry over to the India-spec car. Two states of tune have been mentioned across various reports: a Twin Motor version producing somewhere around 408 bhp and 770 Nm, and a more powerful Twin Motor Performance variant pushing closer to 517 bhp and 910 Nm. Top speed on both is expected to be electronically capped around 180 km/h, which is plenty for a seven-seat luxury SUV.

On range, WLTP figures floating around suggest up to roughly 600 km on the standard Twin Motor, with the Performance variant landing a bit lower given the extra power draw. Worth flagging early: WLTP numbers rarely hold up in real Indian driving conditions, especially with the AC running through a Delhi summer or crawling through Bangalore traffic, so treat that 600 km figure as a lab number, not a daily-use promise. Fast charging is expected to top out around 250 kW DC, with a 10 to 80 percent top-up quoted at roughly 30 minutes, again a figure that depends heavily on the charger and battery temperature at the time.

None of these numbers are officially confirmed for the India-spec car yet. Volvo hasn’t published a local spec sheet, so all of the above should be read as expected figures based on the EX90’s global specification and pre-launch reporting, not as confirmed India numbers.

Safety and tech: the bigger story

Volvo’s whole pitch with the EX90 has always been safety first, and that hasn’t changed. The car is expected to come with a lidar sensor as standard, working alongside a network of cameras, radar, and ultrasonic sensors, a setup Volvo has positioned as its most advanced driver assistance suite yet. Some reports describe this as Level 3 capable ADAS, though how much of that functionality will actually be active for Indian roads and regulations remains to be seen at launch, since Level 3 systems typically need specific regulatory sign-off market by market.

Inside, expect a 14.5-inch vertically mounted touchscreen running Volvo’s Google-based infotainment, a 9-inch digital instrument cluster, and a head-up display around 13.2 inches. Four-zone climate control, a 360-degree camera, panoramic sunroof, Bose sound system, wireless charging, and OTA update support are all part of the global spec sheet and expected to make it to India largely intact. There’s also V2L, or vehicle-to-load capability, letting the EX90 power external devices off its battery, useful for anything from camping gear to emergency home backup.

Seating layout is flexible globally, with four, six, and seven-seat configurations offered depending on market. India will most likely get the seven-seat layout given how this segment behaves locally, though this hasn’t been locked down publicly.

Expected price and where it sits in the market

This is where the picture gets genuinely messy. Different sources are quoting wildly different price expectations, some pointing to ₹1.00 to ₹1.30 crore ex-showroom, others suggesting a starting point closer to ₹1.50 crore and running past ₹1.80 crore for the top variant. Until Volvo India confirms official pricing, treat any specific figure you see, including the ones above, as an estimate rather than something to plan a budget around.

Wherever it lands, the EX90 will be competing directly against the BMW iX, Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV, Kia EV9, and Audi Q8 e-tron, with the upcoming BMW iX5 also likely to cross paths with it. That’s a tightly contested part of the market, and Volvo’s angle here is clearly going to be safety credentials and Scandinavian design restraint rather than trying to out-spec the Germans on raw numbers.

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