Volvo ES90’s minimalist cabin leaves Andrew Frankel unconvinced

The Volvo ES90 is a big family saloon, a modern interpretation of those charming old land yachts that used to collect from boarding school those of us whose parents had decided to outsource their children’s upbringing. I felt nothing but derision for these old barges and pity for my friends who had to travel in them, but I was only seven at the time. It never occurred that they were actually quite cool.

I wonder if, half a century from now, people will look at the ES90 in quite the same way. I think probably not because I suspect that all early EVs (which by then this will be) will be about as desirable as a wad of chewing gum stuck to the sole of your loafer.

But I still feel well-disposed towards the Volvo brand, if not all it has produced of late. I think it still retains some of the old values and I think its commitment to producing a car that cannot be crashed is more than just marketing guff: I think it really matters to them. And I like the fact there is still something slightly iconoclastic about passing by all those premium German brands to buy something from Sweden’s sole surviving volume carmaker, even if the company is now Chinese owned and, indeed, the ES90 made in Chengdu, not Gothenburg.

It has many of the attributes of those old Volvos – it feels strong, it is notably spacious and commendably comfortable – and a few they’d not recognise: its shape has clearly come out of a design studio, not a primary school art project, while inside it is as minimalist and clean as an Apple designer’s bathroom.

I drove the least powerful model with just one electric motor producing 328bhp. Upgrade to the twin motor and power leaps to 451bhp plus you get all-wheel drive and a bigger battery into the bargain, and all for an additional £4000. Extraordinarily another £4700 will park you behind the wheel of the Performance model with 670bhp – a five door Volvo with more power than a McLaren F1. Though why you might want one is a question that remains unanswered in my head.

The reason I was drawn to the base model is it’s already plenty fast enough. I can remember when a 0-62mph time of 6.6sec was the mark of a genuinely fast car, and just because you can now buy cars that’ll do it in half that time doesn’t make this one feel any slower. Indeed when I was told in error that the car I was driving was the more powerful twin-motor, I had no trouble believing him, the mistake only coming to light when it briefly broke traction.

The ride is as plush as you’d expect from a modern Volvo saloon, the hatchback boot is a real bonus and, like many other expensive EVs, it is eerily quiet at speed. It’ll also charge at up to 300kW.

So the assets are totting up, and were we to leave it there, the conclusion might be that this is indeed a car worthy of its solid, honest, unpretentious heritage. But we can’t.

“This is a car that has more range and is quicker to charge than the BMW i5”

Because there are problems here and what it so infuriating about this car is seeing how easily they could be avoided. I accept that the weirdly high floor is not easy to change and, in the XE90 SUV, which sits on exactly the same SPA2 platform, you don’t notice it at all. But at least you can see out of the back of the SUV. I can see more out of the back of my Caterham with the hood up than I can out of the ES90 unless you fold down the rear centre headrest, and even then there’s not the view I’d like.

Is that minimal design so essential that even adjusting the steering wheel or the wing mirrors requires you to dial up the correct menu on the big centre screen and then use the same controller to make the desired adjustment? And in which Volvo safety committee did they sign off forcing the driver to execute no fewer than five different actions just to turn on the rear fog lights? How does that contribute to the ‘collision-free’ future of Volvo’s dreams when you’re making multiple inputs into a screen far from your line of sight having driven into a pea-souper? Or is Volvo happy to let its cars crash so long as they’re not the ones doing the crashing?