Volvo is finally launching its all-electric EX90 flagship after a series of delays. The interior looks great, but the window switches are an annoying example of cost-cutting gone too far. It's not a dealbreaker, but we'll have to see whether the EX90 is nice enough on the road to justify its long gestation period and missing features.
The EX90 is Volvo's long-awaited electric flagship. It's the start of a new era for Volvo, with a new platform, new interior, new infotainment system and new safety suite. Sitting inside one, it feels every bit as nice as its $81,290 starting price would suggest. Until you look at the window switches.
Volvo has copied my least-favorite detail from the Volkswagen ID.4. Rather than giving you four individual switches for the car's four windows, Volvo gives you a left window control, a right window control and a toggle button. The toggle switches the "focus" between the front and rear windows. So if you want to put down the front and rear left windows, you press the left window switch down, toggle the focus to the rear using the toggle switch, and then press the same window switch down again.
Which window you actually roll down when you first hit the switch changes depending on where you left the toggle switch. Because the indicator for which set of windows you're controlling is an set of extraordinarily thin backlit lines positioned a centimeter apart, it's difficult to tell at a glance which windows are selected. On a sunny day in the bright and airy EX90's cabin, it's near impossible. Volkswagen at least lights up the word "REAR" in bright lettering to show you what's selected.
But don't get it twisted. Volvo's version, while annoying, is far less aggravating than Volkswagen's. VW uses a capacitive touch button for the rear window toggle. The result is that it doesn't always take on the first attempt. While a two-step process to roll down the rear window is annoying, a three-step process when the first attempt fails is unacceptable. Four steps if you accidentally roll down the fronts while attempting to select the rears, or vice versa.
Why do they do this?
It's cheaper.
Automakers are pinching pennies as they reconfigure to sell EVs. High battery production costs make EVs more expensive to build than equivalent gas cars, and consumers have shown that they're not willing to pay the whole premium. So car companies—already ruthless about cutting out unnecessary costs—are now getting more bold. For window switches, they argue the minor convenience is worth the tradeoff.
"How often are you rolling down your rear windows?" a Volvo spokesperson asked me. I'm a bad target for that question, because I roll all four windows down for part of almost every drive I take. I like fresh air, I live in a mild climate and I can't stand the buffeting feeling you get when you only roll down one window.
While I may be an outlier, rolling down the windows is not some bizarre edge case. People drive with the windows down all of the time. Many people roll them all down, some only roll down their own window. But big family SUVs carry big families, and their dogs. Between kids rolling their windows down and forgetting to roll them back up when the car parks, dogs and toddlers, I imagine the driver's rear window controls are used relatively frequently in cars like this.
Is it a dealbreaker? No. But when you're launching an $80,000 flagship that's supposed to spearhead your next era, you're selling the image of ultimate luxury. When you raise the price before the car goes on sale, you build those expectations higher. Cutting such an obvious corner is a weird note to start off on. If the EX90's as good to drive as it looks inside, all may be forgiven. But you'll just have to wait until our first drive drops to find out whether Volvo pulled it off.
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