Ever since crossovers took over the world, many enthusiasts have been all too eager to explain why wagons—especially fast ones—are a much better alternative.
I’m one of them.
But the reality is that wagons—fast or not—are dying. Last year, Volvo sold 5,264 V90s and another 4,675 examples of the crossover-adjacent V90 Cross Country. That’s 9,939 total sales for the entire world. Compared to 2023, sales of both versions were down by over 25%. Compared to the XC60 crossover, which recorded over 220,000 sales last year, the V90’s figures are a rounding error.
As a result, production of the V90 will soon come to an end. It’s the end of the road for the last big Swedish wagon, and it’s sad. But if you’re like me, always looking for a good deal, the V90’s relative obscurity can make it an enticing used car purchase.
The V90 wasn’t even on my radar when I set my sights on getting a new car for the family. I wanted an electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid of some sort that would be big enough for a family of four. I looked at the Hyundai Ioniq 5, but the trunk is too small for our needs. The Ioniq 6 is also a solid choice, but its trunk is even smaller than the Ioniq 5's. I shifted my attention to wagons.
I looked at the Volkswagen ID.7 Tourer, but it was way out of my price range. (I live in Romania, where the ID.7 is sold as both a sedan and a wagon.) Eventually, I was ready to pull the trigger on a used Skoda Superb iV plug-in hybrid. The Superb PHEV has a cavernous interior, but is only powered by a puny 1.4-liter gas engine augmented by an electric motor. That said, I was willing to compromise, as its 11.7-kilowatt-hour battery pack is good for about 30 all-electric miles, which would have suited my needs perfectly. I drive about 30 miles every day and can charge at home, so I’d be able to handle most of my driving without ever needing to start the engine.
The Surprise Candidate
Just for fun, though, I turned my attention to used Volvos. The XC60 plug-in hybrid is too small for my needs, so the XC90 was the obvious choice. Until I discovered that a nicely specced one with the plug-in hybrid powertrain was way out of my league. That led me to expand my search to the V90.
Just five cars were available in Germany after I put in all my filters on the used car website. Four were in the base spec, but one was perfection. The top trim, the top powertrain option and a fantastic interior with the superb Bowers & Wilkins audio system. It was a bit of a stretch financially, but still cheaper than a slightly used Volkswagen ID.7 or an equivalent XC90. Thanks to the magic of depreciation, after 31,000 miles (50,000 km) of use, the V90 was half the price of a new one with the same options.
I wasn’t planning on it, but I pulled the trigger, and I couldn’t be happier.
I bought it from a Volvo dealer in Germany and got a one-year warranty that can be extended for another two years if I want. That gives me peace of mind because it’s a fairly complicated machine. It has a total of 455 horsepower and goes like stink when you floor it—it gets from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than five seconds. Make no mistake about it, though—this is not a performance car. The steering offers no feedback and the car feels heavy in the corners. There’s also some torque steer from its front-biased powertrain, so a BMW M5 this is not.
Its biggest attribute is munching miles without breaking a sweat. I drove almost 1,100 miles in two days to get it home, and it handled it perfectly. My back didn’t hurt, and I could have driven another 1,000 miles without even thinking about it. Volvo’s seats have always been comfy, and these are no different.
It’s quiet and extremely refined, but it’s not without flaws. I'll get to those in a second.
The Tech
Volvo chose to go down a different path compared to automakers like BMW and Volkswagen. There’s a 2.0-liter gas engine under the hood sending power to the front wheels through an Aisin eight-speed automatic transmission—the same as you’ll find in a lot of Toyotas sold stateside. There’s also an electric motor powering the rear wheels, with no mechanical connection between the front and rear wheels.
This reduces driveline losses that might occur when the electric motor is sandwiched between the gas engine and transmission, as is the case with most BMW, Volkswagen and Audi PHEVs.
The battery is housed in the middle of the car, just under the center console, where the transmission tunnel would normally be in a traditional all-wheel drive car with a prop shaft going to the rear differential. In Volvo’s case, the PHEV variants are still all-wheel drive, but depending on what is powering the car, it can also be front-wheel drive or rear-wheel drive.
In 2022, the Swedish automaker updated its PHEV system with a bigger and more powerful rear motor, now rated at 143 horsepower (107 kilowatts), as well as a larger high-voltage battery with a usable capacity of 14.9 kilowatt-hours (18.8 kWh total). Meanwhile, the gas engine of the T8 version—the most powerful one—makes 310 hp. In total, the maximum driveline power is 455 hp.
Interestingly, the gas engine in this particular variant doesn’t have an accessory belt, just a timing belt. That’s because the compressor for the A/C refrigerant and the water pump are electric. Also, there’s no alternator and no starter motor—both have been replaced with a starter-generator bolted straight on the end of the crankshaft. Besides starting the gas engine, it also feeds power to the 12-volt system and the high-voltage battery with help from an inverter.
Range And Efficiency
Volvo says the V90 T8 Recharge (that’s the official name) can go up to 54 miles (88 kilometers) on a full charge on the European WLTC cycle. In the real world, with a full battery, I’ve seen up to 40 miles (65 km) of indicated range on the gauge cluster. That’s plenty for my daily needs, and I could even stretch a full charge over two days of driving if I’m careful.
This means for the vast majority of my time, I’ll be driving on electric power, which is cheaper for me than using gas or diesel. Yes, I would have preferred an all-electric wagon, but as I mentioned earlier, I couldn’t find anything that fit my needs and budget.
When the battery is dead, the fuel economy has been quite good, too. I got the car from the dealer with zero miles showing on the battery meter, and I set out on the highway back home. Without plugging in, it averaged around 32 miles per gallon at an average speed of 65 miles per hour (105 kilometers per hour). I have yet to drive the car with a full tank of gas and a full battery, so I don’t know what fuel economy it gets in this scenario–that’s for a future report. In theory, though, it should be about 10% better compared to driving with an empty battery, so around 35 mpg on the highway and even better at slower speeds.
The Good
The best thing about the V90 is the interior. It is simply sublime, with excellent materials everywhere and a very simple layout. It has an Android Automotive OS-based infotainment system, which works just fine. I can download apps like Waze and Spotify to do away with connecting a smartphone to the car. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are here, too, but neither functions wirelessly.
Google Maps and Waze show up on the driver display, which is great, and the car knows how to manage its energy reserves best when using the built-in Maps app (which is just Google Maps).
The transition between all-electric and hybrid power is nearly imperceptible, and the car is not much louder when the gas engine is running. Kudos to Volvo for the effort it put into soundproofing the V90.
The Pilot Assist suite of advanced driver assistance features is also impressive and dependable. I used it extensively during my drive back home and it did a good job of keeping the car centered in the lane–albeit a little to the right, for some reason. The radar-guided cruise control also works great, even in stop-and-go traffic. You just have to nudge the accelerator to get going again after you’ve stopped.
There’s also a one-pedal driving mode to make it more like a full-on EV. It can be switched off in the settings. Brake regen is quite efficient, too, especially in the B mode. When going downhill, it puts a lot of energy into the battery and you also spare the brake pads because the rear electric motor does all the hard work.
The Bad
No car is perfect, and the 2023 Volvo V90 T8 Recharge is no exception. Despite it being half an EV, it offers very little in the way of the usual information that an EV owner would expect. The battery’s state of charge is only shown in miles (or kilometers) remaining, with the percentage figure only showing up in the smartphone app or when the car is plugged in.
Speaking of charging, the car can only accept 3.6 kW, so it takes at least four hours to go from empty to full. In my case, it takes around nine hours to fully recharge the battery because the mobile charger that came with the car is rated at just 10 amps and my grid connection is around 220 volts. That means I can only send around 2 kW to the car. Still, overnight charging is the name of the game here, and I can happily live with the slow-ish charging speeds.
Getting back to the lack of information, Volvo decided that the driver shouldn’t know how many kilowatt-hours of energy went into the battery after a charging session. Not in the trip meter, not in the main settings, not in the app. The trip meter also doesn’t show how much energy was used while driving, although this information is shown in the app.
Plus, the highly digital Volvo is less configurable than I expected. Remember when I said that Google Maps and Waze can show driving directions and the map in the driver display? That’s all well and good, but it’s also the only thing that the driver display can do. The speed and power gauges cannot be customized and you can either have the map or a big chunk of black in the middle of the display. For all the possibilities that a digital display brings, Volvo chose to do nothing with it.
The Bottom Line
While there are issues, I’ve already learned to work around them. The V90 T8 Recharge is a great car that I can use as a daily driver without worrying about breaking the bank. It’s supremely comfortable, blisteringly quick and—most of all—it flies under the radar.
Sure, the fact that it will go out of production soon raises some concerns about spare parts availability in the future, but I'm not too worried because under the skin, the V90 T8 Recharge has many of the same components as the XC60 and XC90, which are Volvo's best-sellers. Oh, and I have that warranty.
Gallery: 2023 Volvo V90 T8 Recharge Review
