As wild as it initially sounded, the rumor claiming Volvo would enter the minivan segment for the first time was true. The company published a preview image to give us an early look at the model, which is called EM90 and will seemingly be sold exclusively on the Chinese market.
The picture was shot from above, so it hides most of the family-hauler’s design details, but we can clearly tell that we’re looking at a minivan. It’s relatively big (it looks like there’s enough space inside for three rows of seats), it’s equipped with sliding doors on both sides, and it features a pair of transparent roof panels. We see enough of the back end to spot Thor’s Hammer-shaped lights and backlit lettering.
Volvo clarified that the EM90 is electric, but it stopped short of providing additional technical specifications. While none of this is official, the aforementioned report claims the van is closely related to the Zeekr 009 under the sheetmetal and uses a dual-motor all-wheel-drive system rated at about 544 horsepower. It will reportedly offer around 500 miles of driving range thanks to a huge, 140-kilowatt-hour battery pack.
It’s wise to take every rumor with a grain of salt, but this one isn’t entirely unfounded. Volvo parent company Geely founded the Zeekr brand in 2021, so taking one of the brand’s models and re-skinning it as the EM90 should be fairly straightforward. It’s also a great way to reap the rewards of economies of scale, and Geely has gotten good at building many different-looking cars on one architecture. Polestar’s upcoming 4 notably shares its platform with the 009, while Volvo and Smart build the EX30 and the #1, respectively, on the same basic architecture.
Volvo will unveil the EM90 on November 12, 2023, and it pledged to release “a lot more details” about the van in the months leading up to the unveiling. Sales in China will start right after the debut, but as of writing nothing suggests we’ll see a Volvo-branded minivan in America.
