Volvo announced that it wants to refresh its entire lineup in the near future, and it began doing so earlier this year with XC90 SUV.
The sales of the XC90 doubled in the United States, and now the Swedish manufacturer went on to overhaul its luxury sedan: enter the S90.
The car will make its debut at the Detroit Auto Show, in January next year. Due to the Scalable Product Architecture that gave us the XC90, the S90 will have approximately the same engines, chassis, infotainment and design as the SUV. For those who missed the XC90 reviews, the SUV got high commends.
This means that S90, the next luxury sedan from Volvo, will compete directly with big names such as Mercedes' E-Class, BMW's 5 Series or Audi's A8.
Volvo stays true to two principles: utmost safety and classy Swedish design.
That is why the S90 comes equipped with features meant to assist the driver and ensure his safety, as well as that of the passengers. The Pilot Assist, the half-autonomous driving service that first showed up on the XC90, got an overhaul. It resembles the way in which Tesla's Autopilot works, meaning that it recognizes the highway markings and gives "gentle steering inputs" that keep the car in its lane. The improvement over the XC90's version is that in the S90 you no longer need to follow a car for the Pilot Assist to calibrate itself.
The City Safety feature uses sensors to evaluate the front and back of the car, so that it can avoid impacts or minimize the damage in case they happen. The S90 is capable to identify large animals, such as horses, deer or elk, and alert the driver and even activate an emergency brake if needed. If the City Safety concludes that a back-sided collision is imminent, it tightens the safety belts and head rests of the passengers.
Images of the interior prove that Volvo spared no effort in terms of design, successfully blending high quality materials with top notch technology. The kingly Sensus infotainment touchscreen thrones in the middle of the dashboard and allows the S90 driver and co-pilot to access the Volvo cloud-based app services. Wikipedia, Yelp, Pandora and others are just a tap away in the posh sedan.
Propulsion-wise, Volvo's luxury sedan customers can choose from three powertrains. The S90 borrows two of them from the powerful XC90. The first is the T6 supercharged and turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, and the T8 twin engine plug-in hybrid powertrain is the second.
A turbocharging exclusive variant of the T6 promises to deliver the new engine, the T5. Not much info exists on the horsepower and torque of the three power plants, but it is likely that T6 and T8 will sport between 316HP and 400HP, similar to the XC90's engines.
