Volvo XC90 gets hammer headlights

WITH two weeks to go before Volvo launches its next-generation XC90 in Stockholm, the Swedish car-maker has released details about the SUV’s revolutionary scalable platform and revealed its ‘Thor’s hammer’ headlights.

The headlamps feature T-shaped LED daytime running lights that Volvo says has been named after Norse god Thor’s weapon of choice.

The all-new XC90 large SUV will be the first Volvo to use the company’s Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) modular chassis that will provide the basis for all future Volvo models upwards from the S60.

Volvo says the scalable architecture’s flexibility will give its engineers and designers more scope to create new features, while improving the driveability of the vehicle, adding more interior space, and incorporating in-car technology and safety features.

The SPA platform has also been designed to fully accommodate Volvo’s new powertrains and technology across a wide range of vehicles of different heights, lengths and wheelbases.

The industrial advantages of this include the many shared components and the associated cost reduction, plus Volvo will be able to make different models on the same production line.

The SPA platform has only one fixed point - between the front wheel hub and the the footwell. The rest of the platform is adjustable, including the wheelbase, overhangs and ride height.

The SPA architecture has arrived as Volvo ventures into a new era of high-output four-cylinder Drive-E powerplants. As GoAuto reported recently, the XC90 T8 flagship will be a plug-in hybrid combining a 239kW/400Nm four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine with a 60kW/240Nm electric motor.

Volvo Group senior vice president research and development Peter Mertens said the SPA platform was a new beginning for the company.

“SPA gives us a fresh technological start,” he said. “Around 90 per cent of the components in the all-new XC90 and upcoming models are new and unique.

“We are raising the bar to the very top of the premium league when it comes to quality and technology level in every vital area.”

Volvo says the scalable architecture will underpin all of its cars from its V60 and S60 model range upwards, but it will be the XC90 that will introduce it to the world.