Volvo to upgrade existing EX90s to more powerful ES90 computer

Customers of early versions of the new Volvo EX90 will be offered a complimentary hardware upgrade to give it the more powerful computing system from the new ES90.

The new ES90 gets two Nvidia Drive AGX Orin processors to run the car’s hardware and software, whereas the EX90 has one Orin processor alongside an older Nvidia Xavier chip. Volvo will be addressing this on EX90s that have already been delivered by retrofitting the dual Orin system, which will boost the car’s computing power eightfold.

The first EX90s were delivered to UK customers last week, but plans for how and when the upgrade rollout will take place have still to be finalised. The Polestar 3, which shares its SPA2 underpinnings with the EX90, will also be subject to similar upgrades, as announced recently by Polestar.

Engineering boss Anders Bell called it a “unique” situation where Volvo is able do the retrofit hardware update because relatively few models have made it to market with that system. He said that rather than have to develop parallel software systems that would have to be rolled out across different hardware platforms, it is easier to replace the hardware of the cars already out there. 

Volvo software boss Alwin Bakkenes said this will unlock more features in the future for early EX90 owners and has the dual benefit of Volvo being able to manage software updates across more models more easily. The goal is to launch four consumer-facing software updates each year that add more functionality or make improvements, but updates are being fed to the factory and development cars all the time. 

A key function to be added off the back of early EX90s’ hardware shift will be more capability for the lidar sensor, which will gain the ability to steer away from pedestrians and cyclists on the side of the road in the dark. Bakkenes said this is a “remarkably frequent use case” and will help “save a lot of lives”. 

While the computing system of early EX90s will be upgraded, the electronic architecture of these early models will remain at 400V. The ES90 gets a more powerful 800V system. New-build EX90s will switch over to an 800V architecture, too, but the precise date for this to happen to coincide with customer deliveries has yet to be determined. CEO Jim Rowan said this is likely coincide with a model-year change.