Volvo V90 review

One of the best-looking ‘ordinary’ cars money can buy? Quite possibly. The Volvo V90 has been on sale in Britain since mid-2016. But here it is in 2023 looking as sharp, sophisticated and bang up-to-date as the day it was launched.

Fundamentally the V90 is a Big Family Estate. Much like the Mercedes-Benz E-Class Estate, BMW 5 Series Touring and Audi A6 Avant. Only it’s not German so, as you’ll read, it does things a bit differently. Good differently.

It seats five very comfortably indeed – gone are the days when some big estates had an extra couple of kids’ seats in the boot – and like its rivals costs from around £50,000 or £530/month.

So where does the V90 fit into Volvo's line-up?

Happily Volvo’s line-up is nowhere near as difficult to wrap your head around as, say, Audi’s (what even is a Q5 Sportback 50 TFSI e quattro, anyway?).

Its cars and SUVs are first divided by bodystyle – V means estate, S means saloon and XC means SUV – then by ‘series’. 40-series Volvos are small, the 60-series is medium-sized and the 90-series is big. Therefore the XC40 is a small SUV, the S60 is a medium-sized saloon, the V90 is a big estate and so-on.

All 90- and 60-series Volvos are based on the same ‘SPA’ platform, so they use the same engines and technologies.

Do they do a hybrid?

Absolutely, in fact every engine available in the V90 is electrified in some form.

Volvo has canned its diesel offering, the V90 instead getting one 2.0-litre petrol engine in various tunes. The 'B4' and 'B5' petrols are both mild hybrids, meaning they use something called an ‘integrated starter generator’ to (marginally) reduce fuel consumption. There’s also a pair of proper plug-in hybrids which pair a 2.0-litre petrol engine with an 18.8kWh battery for up to 55 miles of electric range (claimed), dubbed 'Recharge'. There's the T6 and the return of the range-topping T8.

The V90’s German rivals are all available with big, six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines. Not so the Swede – the ‘SPA’ platform was only designed to fit four-cylinder combustion engines. Understandable, but a shame nonetheless. At least the PHEVs are punchy, the 345bhp T6 plug-in hybrid covering off 0-62mph in 5.5 seconds, while the T8 can do it in 4.8s.

The range is split between front- and all-wheel drive (in the hybrid, it’s the electric motor that drives the rear wheels), but all V90s get an eight-speed automatic gearbox.

More on all this under the Driving tab.

I bet the boot's massive...

Well the V90 is a Volvo estate, so yes of course it’s jolly cavernous. But maybe not quite as cavernous as you’d think or hope, because the V90 actually sacrifices a measure of practicality in the name of style. The sloping rear glass means in terms of outright volume, and with all the seats folded flat for max cube, the V90’s boot isn’t as big as rivals’.

Still – that’s like saying the Eiffel Tower is a bit taller than the Shard. At the end of the day they’re both chuffing tall buildings. The V90 is still hugely practical, and somewhat makes up for its lack of relative capacity with clever, practical touches. Head on over to the Interior tab for more.

Ever since the company’s 2015 renaissance that saw it launch the XC90, V and S90 in pretty quick succession, Volvo has epitomised Scandi chic in four-wheeled form. Its cars are just so zen - even with three kids pinging rubber bands at the back of your head and a boot-full of fragile antiques that could at any point irreparably shatter into a million pieces, the Volvo V90 is a supremely soothing way to travel. An oasis of calm that makes navigating Britain’s poorly surfaced, narrow, congested road network – and the other drivers that occupy it – feel about as irritating and stressful as sitting on a sun lounger reading a good book. 

The V90 is not without fault, mind: the boot isn’t as big as rivals’, the (outgoing) infotainment system feels its age and the plug-in’s combustion engine is perhaps less refined than it could be.

But still it’s a very well-rounded, complete, comfortable car with a calming temperament that makes it a pleasure to waft about in. Look at one before you commit to that Audi, Mercedes or BMW. All of which, to their credit, are bloody good cars too.