Our view:
Of all the wonderful Geely/SPA/CMA Volvos we've driven in the past five years, the one which left us least convinced of its merits was the
S90. Strange, this, as we're normally suckers for a wafty luxobarge, but somehow our test of a D4 R-Design in 2017 had us feeling somewhat cool towards it. Oh, like any 'New Era' (NB: this is our own terminology and not anything which is Gothenburg-official) Volvo, it had the striking looks (fussy rear lights notwithstanding) and stunning interior quality, but it just felt a bit 'meh'. And one of those clear cases where its estate sibling, the
V90, was the obviously superior choice.
However, with Volvo having recently made some subtle tweaks to the plug-in hybrid (PHEV) drivetrain of the flagship T8 model, specifically with regards to enlarging the battery capacity, we felt it was time to revisit the S90 and see if we weren't being a bit hard on the old boy. And, while we apologise for showing you an R-Design version in the accompanying photos for this review (*discreet cough*), the car which actually turned up for a week-long evaluation was an S90 T8 Inscription Plus in Onyx Black and on a silver set of 19-inch wheels, with an interior resplendent in Blond Nappa soft leather with contrasting Charcoal dashboard/fascia/footwell details and Pitched Oak inlays.
The result? Volvo perfection. Absolute, and utter, perfection. What a car the handsome saloon is, thus specified. OK, so we have to try and remain objective about this, as we're critics at the end of the day, and so we cannot legitimately give the S90 T8 Inscription Plus full marks overall for the following three reasons: one, it remains, dynamically speaking, a slightly aloof car, one that feels Audi quattro-esque (that's a small 'q', by the way, not a big one; we're not about to say the S90 drives like a warbling, five-cylinder coupe sliding sideways through a muddy forest) in its steadfast point-it-and-go cornering abilities; two, we cannot ignore the fact our delightful test example was a £64,000 car, which is a heaping great pile of cash no matter how you cut it; and three, if it were our preferred
V90 Cross Country in otherwise exactly the same colourway, we'd have been ringing up Volvo UK's PR department and shouting 'shut up and take our money!' down the phone at them.
But it's a little unfair to mark the S90 down for 'not being an estate'. And while the handling of the car isn't scintillating, by the same token it is a long way from being poor or mediocre. There's oodles of grip, excellent body control, superb damping and nice, clean steering, all of which make placing the T8 at speed an exercise in crisp precision, if not tyre-smoking tomfoolery. Finally, we'd even go so far as to say that £64,055 for a Volvo as mesmerising as this seems like good value, rather than the PHEV being overpriced; furthermore, Volvo's 'Recharge' policy focusing on electrification means you can't get any powertrain besides the T8 in the S90, as at the time of writing, so the range technically begins at a whopping £55,180 in any case.
Oh, and if you want to know the options fitted to push the price of our test example up, they were these: Intellisafe Surround, comprising Blind Spot Information System with Steer Assist, Cross-Traffic Alert with Autobrake and Rear Collision Mitigation (£500); a 360-degree Parking Camera Surround View (£525); dark tinted windows at the back half of the car (£400); a 4.5-metre Type 2/Mode 3 charging cable (£50); metallic paint (£700); the Winter Pack, comprising a heated steering wheel, heated washer-jet nozzles and a headlight-cleaning system (£200); the Family Pack, comprising two-stage integrated child seats for the outer-rear two chairs and power child locks on the back doors (£275); and the majestic Bowers & Wilkins Premium Sound System (£3,000). Frankly, while the B&W system is the only extra here we wouldn't even hesitate to add into an S90, we could probably only knock you £675 out of this list by suggesting you don't bother with the tinted glass and the Family Pack... but as that's not much of a saving on a 60-odd-grand car, you might as well have 'em too.
So, let's expand on why the S90 T8 Inscription so blew us away. We've already touched on the interior, which is exquisite and the perfect, light-of-touch antidote to stolid Germanic cabins. On the outside, black paint does a great job of toning down the Volvo's complex rear styling and while we still think the
S60 is a tauter piece of three-box design, in a darker shade like this the S90 looks its absolute best. After our recent sampling of an
XC90 T8 R-Design, where we felt we'd finally come to a decision in the Inscription v R-Design Volvo spec battle, this executive saloon vindicated our call to recommend avoiding R-Design.
Then there's the ride comfort, which - just for good measure - hammers the whole 'Inscription is best' point home with an unerring finality. With no fancy R-Design suspension fitted and bereft of needlessly over-sized alloy wheels, trying to bestow the S90 with a false sportiness its chassis make-up does not deserve, what you have with the T8 Inscription is a car which covers ground with an elegance and dignity that nothing else in this class can match. For 539 miles in its company, we never once encountered a single instant where the Volvo's comportment became even remotely unseemly or discomfiting, and with the sort of unstinting noise suppression that feels like a car worth twice as much as the T8, you simply tot up big distances in a thoroughly relaxed, unruffled fashion. On the motorways, this S90 is imperious.
It even appears to manage its petrol-electric resources better than some other Volvo T8s we've been in. Case in point being that XC90 we had about six weeks prior to the S90. Whereas the former turned in 30.5mpg overall, the latter bumped that up to 33.4mpg in similar circumstances. Its best economy on a longer run, where it used both petrol and electric, was 72.1mpg; not up to the XC90's peak of 112.5mpg, but then the SUV did a much shorter journey on mainly electric power alone to achieve that figure. What we're trying to say here is that, because it is lower and lighter (by 298kg) than an XC90 T8, the S90 T8 manages to give back better fuel economy when operated by a human displaying the same lapse attention to charging it up regularly from the mains, while (on those rare occasions it
did have charge) its fully electric range was more often showing 30 miles or so. True, a good D5 might be a better option for people who live in rural areas, but as Volvo has been going about the process of quietly dropping its diesels since the S60 arrived, then the T8 is your only engine choice in the S90 right now.
This is no hardship. It's a lovely drivetrain. It might not generate the greatest noise in Christendom, or even a tune which could rival a six- or eight-cylinder rival making about the same horsepower, but there's enough appeal to the whining of the supercharger (which seems to be mounted very close to the S90's bulkhead) to make full acceleration in the T8 feel worth the effort. The petrol revs smoothly and the electric fills in with its torque-related tricks, so that the speed the S90 can effortlessly pile on is in every way concomitant with a car claiming a peak 390hp and a 0-62mph time of little more than five seconds. Furthermore, both the eight-speed automatic gearbox and the brakes, which do some regenerative work if you place the gearbox in 'B', work unobtrusively, so piloting the Volvo in a smooth manner to match its strongest characteristics is a cinch.
So is low-speed manoeuvring, while the Volvo possesses a general grace when quietly traversing urban areas. In fact, it was an overwhelmingly classy performance from the S90 T8 Inscription during its week in our care, to the point that we absolutely did not want to see it leave. And we certainly never felt like that about the D4 R-Design model we sampled three years ago. Sure, this big Volvo executive PHEV saloon isn't perfect and we'd still have a V90 first and foremost (mainly because we have to ferry dogs about the place and the S90's rather excellent 500-litre boot is, regrettably, no place for a couple of 28kg-plus retrievers), but in the Audi A6/BMW 5 Series/
Mercedes E-Class market sector, the simple switch from a D4 R-Design to a T8 Inscription Plus has moved the S90 from the status of 'mildly intriguing also-ran' to 'probably the first thing we'd choose if it were our money'. And, for that, you have to give this divine Volvo all the credit in the world.
