Volvo’s next-generation EX90 electrical crossover will introduce lidar expertise that cocoons the car in an “invisible defend of security.”

Lidar is a distant sensing methodology that makes use of laser gentle pulses to render exact photos of the surroundings across the car.

Whereas automakers usually embed security sensors within the car grille or entrance fascia, Volvo positioned the lidar unit on the EX90’s roofline. For an excellent cause.

Volvo Vehicles exterior design boss, T. Jon Mayer, describes the lidar unit because the eyes of the car.

Putting the lidar sensor within the grille can be like having “eyes in your knees,” limiting imaginative and prescient to the car immediately in entrance, Mayer stated.

“However if you happen to put it up excessive, you’ll be able to see above that automobile and past,” he stated.

Volvo stated the EX90’s lidar, from Luminar, can detect pedestrians as much as 820 toes (250 meters) away, even at freeway speeds.

Designers thought of integrating the lidar underneath the windscreen however found the windshield rake compromised the sensor’s effectiveness.

“We’ve 100-degree extensive imaginative and prescient on the lidar that’s all the time scanning what’s in entrance,” Mayer stated. “We’ve to combine this factor within the optimum place, which is on the roof.”

Past early detection, the roof mount additionally protects the delicate and costly sensor from harm in a collision or from street particles.

However whereas positioning the lidar module on the EX90s roofline maximizes efficiency, the boxy unit additionally disrupts airflow across the car and creates drag.

A low aerodynamic drag coefficient, or Cd, is crucial for EVs to increase their driving vary.

Volvo designers developed a low-profile, teardrop-shaped cowl for the lidar to cut back drag.

Mayer stated the quilt rounds off the lidar’s edges and tapers towards the rear, so air flows across the sides and over the module.

“It is about getting the air to connect seamlessly to the automobile as if the lidar wasn’t even there,” he stated. “There may be very minimal influence from an aerodynamic standpoint.”

The EX90’s entrance design is “impressed by a sailboat’s skill to shear by means of the ocean’s slamming waves,” Mayer stated.

“However it’s additionally rounder total, which allows the air to circulate across the automobile extra effectively,” he famous.

The design tweaks, coupled with flush glazing and door handles, assist the seven-seat EX90 obtain a 0.29 coefficient of drag. As compared, Tesla’s three-row Mannequin X Plaid electrical crossover has a drag coefficient of 0.24.

The EX90 is Volvo’s greatest all-new product launch because the XC40 arrived in 2017.

The crossover, to be revealed on Nov. 9 in Stockholm, Sweden, is on the vanguard of a wave of recent fashions that may rework Volvo into an all-electric model by 2030.

European deliveries of the EX90 ought to start in late 2023 to early 2024.