Volvo S90 safety initiatives
- Pilot Assist – an advanced semi-autonomous drive feature. The system gives gentle steering inputs to keep the car properly aligned within lane markings up to motorway speeds of around 80mph (130km/h) and no longer needs to follow another car. Pilot Assist is another step towards full autonomous drive – a key innovation area for Volvo.
- City Safety upgrade large animal detection – a system capable of detecting large animals such as horses (or elk or moose!), night or day. The technology offers an intuitive warning and brake support to help avoid a collision.
- CoPilot – free fleet management support for all SMEs. For more on this free SME feature click here: New free Volvo Co-Pilot duty of care support programme
WELL now, what do we have here? A rather striking big Volvo saloon that’s what – and the new S90 is heading directly into BMW 5 Series, Mercedes E-Class, Audi A6 and Jaguar XF territory.
Big saloons have never been one of Volvo’s strong suits, but this low volume premium saloon could be the car to change that if small businesses decide they want something different from the usual premium saloon fare.
Step forward the Volvo S90 then: it will lead with a CO2 emission-bashing T8 petrol-electric plug-in hybrid version – already seen in the Volvo XC90 SUV – with an HMRC wincing CO2 level of just 44g/km.
In other words, you’ll get to drive a premium big saloon for a company car tax band of just 7%.
That’s considerably lower than Volvo’s smallest car, the V40 (17% for the record).
There will also be a couple of diesel versions, the Volvo S90 D4 manual (109g/km) and the Volvo S90 D5 eight-speed auto (133g/km).
And these will be joined by a T6 petrol but there are no CO2 figures for that yet.
There will be three levels of Volvo S90 trim:
- Momentum
- Inscription
- R-Design
“We expect most business users to head for the T8 hybrid model,” confirmed Selwyn Cooper, head of business sales at Volvo. “The S90 will appeal to user choosers wanting a premium exec where, to be honest, big Volvos have failed before – it has stand-out looks, it’s bigger than the competition, and it’s just plain different to other premium brands, especially with those ‘Thor Hammer’ LED headlamps, which are standard.”
You’ll certainly be driving something different – the big Scandinavian will not be seen in the sort of numbers you can expect from BMW and Mercedes, with modest sales of 2,000 a year – it’s a car for those business owners who want a saloon rather than the more rugged appeal of the XC90 SUV.
Prices are yet to be announced, but Selwyn confirmed that business owners wanting to put the Volvo S90 on a business car lease would be paying a competitive monthly rental. So expect it to be from around the £350 mark + VAT.
And if a saloon is not for you, but you fancy the looks of the S90. Well, no worries: there’s an estate V90 version on the way too.
Volvo S90 sales timeline
- Jan 2016 World debut at Detroit Motor Show
- March 2016 Prices announced at Geneva Motor Show
- June 2016 Demonstrators available to test drive
- September 2016 First customer cars delivered
- October 2016 Dealer launch of Volvo S90
