At Volvo’s Capital Markets Day presentation in Sweden today, the company announced several new technologies, including a broader collaboration with Nvidia, a new software suite developed in-house, an all-new SPA3 platform and up to five new electric cars to be launched worldwide by the end of the decade.
Volvo’s electric car plans have been a hit in the United States as well as Europe, but now it’s pitching itself as a technology company aiming to master artificial intelligence and safety. The company says it’s not racing to develop AI and software but is committed to doing it the right way to help it achieve its goal of “zero collisions.”
Five New Electric Cars This Decade
The newly launched EX90 electric sports car, recently reviewed by InsideEVs, will serve as a launch pad for the company’s next generation of electric vehicles.
Volvo said the lessons learned from the EX90 will help it build the ES90 electric sedan, which is due to be revealed in a few months. “It’s our first low-cost electric car in its own class,” Erik Severinson, Volvo’s chief product and strategy officer, said during a capital markets day presentation.
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The ES90 will be based on the same SPA2 architecture as the EX90, but “will be aimed at a global audience, including the EU, the US and Asia,” Severinson said. “But China could be its biggest market.”
Over time, lessons learned from the EX90 SUV and ES90 sedan will help Volvo develop the EX60 midsize electric SUV for the mass market. The EX60 will be based on the next-generation SPA3 platform. It will be followed by three other unnamed electric vehicles, which will feature similar software and electrical architecture.
There’s also a “long-range plug-in hybrid” in development, but it wasn’t immediately clear if it would be part of the five electric cars planned for this decade.
SPA3 platform
Volvo said the SPA3 platform will feature Volvo’s third-generation electric engines. Current SPA2 engines are 91 percent efficient. Volvo said the SPA3 engines will be 93 percent efficient. Some of Volvo’s older electric engines were 85 percent efficient. For another perspective, the average thermal efficiency of internal combustion engines is about 35 percent.
It will also feature structural battery packs — something Tesla has done for years — and will be equipped with new, higher-energy-density cells. Interestingly, Volvo says the scalability of this platform will allow it to build cars larger than the EX90 and smaller than the EX30.
Volvo
Volvo teased its ES90 electric sedan at its 90/90 Days show in Sweden this week.
Superset technology group
One of the biggest announcements today is what Volvo calls its “Superset.” It’s essentially a unified set of modules, software and hardware that will come with all future Volvo cars.
“Like a set of building blocks, it can be configured in many different ways. Each new car will be a selection or subset of building blocks from the high-tech stack, and we will constantly improve and grow the technology stack,” the company said.
“The EX60 will be the next major driver of Volvo Cars’ sales volume. It will be the first car based on the SPA3 architecture, built in Gothenburg for global markets,” said Severinsson. “There are three more cars in active development and all five will feature our Superset technology suite, meaning the same modules, hardware, software and platform.”
The Nvidia Drive Orin system-on-chip (SoC) that powers the EX90 is part of this technology platform. It’s capable of 250 trillion operations per second (TOPS). All of this helps cars improve their ADAS features and collect data for future autonomous driving capabilities.
Volvo
Volvo said it is expanding its partnership with Nvidia to include Drive Thor in future models. It didn’t say which cars would feature the system, but the EX60 seems like a possibility. Nvidia’s Drive Thor system would be capable of 1,000 trillion operations per second.
“By 2025, 50-60% of all global sales will be electric,” said CEO Jim Rowan. “By 2030, we’re aiming for 90-100% electric.” That includes plug-in hybrids and all-electric models, though he admitted he doesn’t expect the shift to be linear. Different markets will see different stages of growth.
In a separate roundtable with reporters, Rowan reiterated his commitment to electric vehicles. He said electric vehicles are the way to go when it comes to efficiency. “Ultimately, technology will win,” he said. “We are committed to electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are the future.”
However, it was a shame that Volvo didn’t say much about how it plans to improve the range and charging experience of its electric cars – two aspects that remain central to the electrification transition. But above all, some of Volvo’s high-tech all-electric and plug-in hybrid cars will arrive this decade in the US, Europe and other parts of the world, which is great news for the electrification transition.
