Volvo sees long-term benefits from EX90's software struggles

Volvo Cars' top executive expects the automaker to see long-term benefits from the software issues that have delayed the launch of its flagship full-electric SUV.

The EX90 debuted in November 2021 but only recently started rolling off the production line at Volvo’s U.S. factory because of software issues. Deliveries will begin later this year.

CEO Jim Rowan said Wednesday that the EX90’s troubles will help future models using the large SUV’s new SPA2 underpinnings – while also helping Volvo’s bottom line.

“When we delayed the EX90, part of the delay for that was to make sure that the follow-on products and the follow-on software could be reused to a very high level,” Rowan said on a call with financial analysts after Volvo released its first-quarter financial results.

Rowan said that the money Volvo spent on the software should pay dividends over the next five to six years.

“What we'll see is a reuse of really robust code that we'll have written and tested in the EX90,” he said. “That means the development work on that is much less costly.”

As a result, Rowan expects Volvo to get future SPA2-based models to market much quicker than was the case for the EX90.

“We can make sure that the distance between launching those cars and actually getting those cars into the hands of customers is much more in line with what we would like to see,” he said, “a couple of months versus a year or more.”

Automakers hope that shifting emphasis to software from hardware will cut development costs, strengthen customer loyalty and increase revenue.

Creating a software-defined car, however, requires a complete rethink of vehicle development, new supplier relationships and an overhaul of corporate culture.

By 2030, digital services could generate as much as $1.5 trillion in additional revenue for the global industry, rising to $3.5 trillion, amounting to 40 percent of total automotive industry revenue by 2040, according to research by the consultancy Accenture.

'Closer to that pure core compute'

The re-purposing of the software is just one way Volvo aims to amortize its big investment in the EX90 and its sibling models.

Rowan told Automotive News Europe last December that SPA2 would evolve into the Global Product Architecture, or GPA.

"GPA is basically like a SPA3. It takes us closer to that pure core compute architecture. But it's a build-on of SPA2. Then we are going to be talking about the next generation of that -- SPA4, SPA5 -- as further build-ons," he said. "A lot of the components, a lot the intelligence and a lot of engineering work that we do for SPA2 can be dropped into SPA3, or GPA, or whatever you want to call it."

When asked to outline the advantages of the strategy, Rowan said: "It means we don't need to change everything. We can reuse large parts of that existing architecture, put in a higher computational chipset, put in slightly different software, upgrade it from 400 to 800 volts and so on. But the core investments that we make can be reused."

Alwin Bakkenes, Volvo's head of software engineering, told Automotive News Europe in March that the EX90 helps the automaker stand out from its competitors because of its unique core computing technology.
 
In the past, automakers such as Volvo had a clear start and end date when it came to building a car's life cycle.

Now, Volvo first defines the product behavior in its core computer.

"We actually make sure that the core computer has access to all the areas that are in the car, so it's an API (application programming interface) for the software-defined architecture, where the core computer has access to and can control lots of different things in the vehicle. That is pretty unique," Bakkenes said.

The EX90's core computing system is powered by Nvidia's Xavier and Orin products. Xavier, which is designed for Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems and Level 3 automated driving, delivers 30 trillion operations per second. Meanwhile, the Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC) delivers 254 trillion operations per second, allowing developers to scale from Level 2 to Level 5 full-autonomous vehicles.

The EX90 also has a Qualcomm processor that works with in-house software to run most of the core functions inside the car, from safety and infotainment to battery management.