Volvo may have a long and distinguished history selling wagons, but changing buyer preferences and evolving ways of defining car types mean long-roof models may not be a part of its future.
Speaking to Autocar at the unveiling of the ES90 – an electric ‘sedan’ which is actually a liftback with increased ground clearance – Volvo CEO Jim Rowan said the Geely-owned brand could forgo wagons in its lineup.
“Yeah, because I think it’s changed, right? SUVs have changed with ride height,” Mr Rowan said when asked if Volvo could continue without wagons.
“One of the things that changed over the years is the decision makers of buying a Volvo car over-indexes to women, because they like a higher ride height.
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Volvo V60 Cross Country
“Then with our saloons (sedans), with the ES90 you will see we’ve brought the ride height up, rather than down.
“You get so much room in an EV (electric vehicle) car. You don’t have an engine, so you can push the cabin forward and get a lot of boot space.”
Volvo’s first wagon was the Duett of 1953, which was followed by long-roof versions of the Amazon and 140 Series.
Subsequent popular wagons from the brand have included the 200 Series produced during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, as well as the 850 of the 1990s.
Currently, Volvo offers two wagons: the V60 and V90, both of which can be had in high-riding Cross Country guise. Only the V60 Cross Country is sold here.
A boom in popularity for SUVs, even in historically wagon-friendly Europe, has seen wagons almost completely disappear from global model lineups, with even sedans feeling the strain.
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Volvo 200-Series
Out of Volvo’s current or upcoming EVs, the ES90 is the model that most resembles a traditional passenger vehicle.
The EX30, EX40 (formerly XC40 Recharge), EC40 (formerly C40), EX60 (due in 2026) and EX90 are all SUVs, while the EM90 is a Chinese-market people mover based heavily on the Zeekr 009.
Similarly, the S60 sedan and V60 Cross Country are Volvo’s only passenger cars in its Australian lineup, sharing the showroom with some of the aforementioned EVs as well as the XC40, XC60 and XC90 but accounting for a much, much smaller percentage of the brand’s sales.
While the ES90 is closely related to the EX90, much as the combustion-powered S90 counterpart is closely related to the XC90, Mr Rowan said it’s unlikely Volvo would introduce something like an ‘ES60’ passenger car to be twinned with the EX60.
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Volvo ES90
“It’s expensive to bring different models to the market, it’s expensive to keep those models in the market and it’s expensive to launch them from a marketing point of view,” the executive told Autocar.
Mr Rowan added that, as an example, the XC60 SUV could be spun off in ways to become an effective replacement for the V90 wagon.
“Rather than bring a V90, for example, are we better to position that car [the XC60] in a slightly different way? We have the Black Edition, we have the Cross Country edition. So we then now have different editions of the same base car,” he said.
“It’s much, much cheaper and much more cost-effective for us to drive more volume through that same platform and that same form factor.
“We’re a reasonably small company with limited resources. We’re making very conscious choices about where we want to play the game and where we’re differentiated.”
