Volvo S90 T8: Luxury, Thy Name is No Longer Lincoln
Ford messed up big time when it sold Volvo to the Chinese. While its Lincoln division stagnates, this Swedish speedster is poised to woo a lot of status buyers. Dan Neil takes it for a spin
SWEDE CAR, BRO In 2010, Ford sold Volvo to a Chinese conglomerate, only to see it prosper with cars like this S90, while Ford’s rival Lincoln division languished.
By Dan Neil
March 9, 2018 10:12 a.m. ET
22 COMMENTS
THE SADDEST WORDS of tongue or pen are “It might have been,” wrote the poet John Greenleaf Whittier.
Can it, Johnny, say Ford shareholders.
Once upon a time, Ford owned the Volvo Car Corporation but, in 2010, sold it to the Chinese conglomerate Zhejian Geely Holding Group for $1.8 billion, which was just $4.7 billion shy of the price Ford paid for the Swedish carmaker 11 years before.
What happened next should be a lesson to all Western carmakers: After investing $11 billion to reboot and retool the brand (around Volvo’s Scalable Product Architecture, or SPA), Geely management stepped back, went quiet, and let the folks in Gothenburg, Sweden, do their inimitable Nordic thing.
Eight years later, the company’s SPA-based family of products, like our test car—the debonair S90 T8 eAWD Inscription sedan ($82,140, as tested)—are selling like meatballs at IKEA. Last year Volvo off-loaded 571,577 vehicles globally, an increase of 53% from 2010. Revenue was up 16.6% year-over, with a nice bump in EBIT too.
Good lord, Volvo’s global sales grew 12.1% in February alone, including a 35.1% increase in the U.S. And even these numbers don’t quite tell the tale. U.S. sales are constrained by production capacity, which is why the company is putting a $1.1 billion assembly hall in South Carolina to build sedans and SUVs for the global market.
Mr. Whittier asks that you compare and contrast: U.S. sales of Ford’s premium Lincoln brand have been stagnant for years and were down 23.4% in February, even with the high demand for the new Lincoln Navigator. The trend lines suggest Volvo will soon outsell Lincoln in its home market, even though the latter is an American icon, has more than twice the number of dealerships as Volvo, and most U.S. consumers couldn’t find Sweden on a map.
S90 T8 Inscription
S90 T8 Inscription PHOTO: VOLVO
Why is Volvo prospering while its former stablemate Lincoln languishes? I blame Wall Street. Ford management will never invest what it would take to relaunch Lincoln as a competitive luxury brand because investors won’t support them. The payoff would be too far down the road.
Instead, Ford is content to glam up mass-market Ford products and call them Lincolns. Example: The 2018 Lincoln Continental, comparable to our Volvo S90, uses the CD4 platform under the Ford Fusion. And while sharing vehicle architectures is a reality of global car-building, it always works better when a premium product goes down-market rather than the other way around. Despite all the faux-patrician décor and yacht-club mirror plating, the Continental’s Ford-iness fairly shouts from the air vents.
The S90 feels premium in its bones: light, stiff, unshakable, ineffably modern. Deploying an extravagant amount of ultra-high-strength steel for the passenger cell, the S90 is future-proofed to ace European crash standards for years to come. Safety systems including the road-following “Pilot Assist” and collision-avoidance functions as standard equipment, plus all manner of air bags.
Our alpine-white test car certainly wowed the neighbors. The look starts with the car’s stance, broad and low, settled on 20-inch alloys. Then there’s the marmoreal serenity of the shoulder lines. Especially well made are the slender roof pillars, elegant on the outside and better for sightlines from the inside. Charismatic details such as the “Thor’s Hammer” LED headlamps, chrome spears on the doors, and handsome brightwork smile complete the picture. It’s remarkable that such a cheerful design comes from the brooding brow of the Scandinavians.
Volvo offers only four-cylinder engines in the 90 series (thus the low hoodline). In the S90 T5 the output is 250 hp; T6 gets a bump in output to 316 hp. Our test car is the technology flagship, a plug-in electric hybrid with 400 net system horsepower, a 10.4 kWh battery pack, two electric motors and an all-electric range of 21 miles, officially. Volvo calls this arrangement Twin Engine technology: The supercharged/turbocharged direct-injection 2.0-liter gas engine (313 hp) drives the front wheels through an eight-speed gearbox, while an 87-hp electric motor on the rear axle provides hybrid-electric all-wheel drive.
The T8’s hybrid powertrain is as yet unperfected. Just as in the XC90 T8 I drove in 2015, the sedan’s brake response was sometimes touchy and unprogressive around town, with the friction brakes and regenerative braking seeming to saw at each other. With the XC90 I thought it was a matter of calibration in the early days. Now I think it’s intrinsic to the hardware.
‘The S90 feels premium in its bones: light, stiff, unshakable, ineffably modern. It certainly wowed the neighbors.’
However, considering T8 models qualify for a $5,002 federal tax credit and $1,500 in California, I might be willing to overlook it.
In Hybrid mode, the S90 works like a big Swedish Prius, efficient, unhurried, greased with electrons, the motor and IC engine sharing the load for maximum efficiency. Power mode is much more sprightly, I found. From a standing start, the e-boosted initial acceleration lovingly mashed me into one of the best bucket seats in all of Buttopia, while the two very hardworking liters of displacement revved between gear changes—viiiippp, viiiiiipppp! Zero-to-60 mph is a bloodlessly efficient 4.8 seconds. Oh, we’re here already.
Again partly thanks to its steely backbone, the S90 T8 has some nifty driving moves. The e-assisted adaptive steering is lightly weighted and nicely sharp. Rolling in and out of corners, scuffing and skittering on the summer sport tires, the big car’s body motions are well damped and dead steady. Our car was also fitted with the optional rear air spring suspension ($1,200), which adds a layer of lushness to what might strike some as a too-stiff suspension.
The deal closer is the S90’s interior, though, especially in Inscription trim. Here you will find Volvo’s lovely linear walnut inlays, the cut-and-stitch upper dash and doors, the soulful indirect lighting and Nappa leather upholstery comprising several head of former cattle.
Reflecting Volvo’s increased emphasis on the rear cabin—where most owners would sit in China, don’t you know—the Inscription package includes rear power window shades and four-zone climate control. The Luxury package ($3,450) adds leather sunshades and grab bars and heated and ventilated seats.
With everything in the catalog—including the Bowers & Wilkins premium audio system ($3,200), the heated steering wheel ($300)—our test car is priced at a thoroughly persuasive $82,140, and that’s before tax credits. That’s the kind of value that makes buyers into lifers.
Ford coulda, shoulda, but wouldn’t.
2018 VOLVO S90 T8 EAWD INSCRIPTION
S90 T8 Inscription
S90 T8 Inscription PHOTO: VOLVO
Base Price $64,645
Price, as Tested $82,140
Powertrain Transverse-mounted 2.0-liter super- and turbocharged direct-injection inline four cylinder; eight-speed automatic transmission; 87-hp rear-axle electric motor; on-demand all-wheel drive
Battery 10.4 kWh, liquid-cooled
Power/Torque 400 hp/472 lb-ft
Length/Width/Height/Wheelbase 200.1/74.6/56.8/120.5 inches
Curb Weight 4,579 pounds
0-60 mph 4.8 seconds
EPA Fuel Economy 71 mpg electric/gas combined, city/highway
