Volvo Doubled Down on SUVs—But U.S. Sales Still Plunged 32%

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YeonneGreene@reddit

Intrusive and not particularly well-calibrated safety features, unintuitive operator controls, a software stack perpetually stuck in beta, obvious corner-cutting across the hardware stack, and - as the cherry on top - absolutely zero aspirational elements anywhere in their product line.

Like, the XC40/60/90 are competent but aging and were never superlative to start, the EX30 is a buggy mess and cancelled for the US market, the EX90 is Fisher Price garbage, the ES90 is likewise, and they have nothing now or in the pipeline to generate any amount buzz.

It was the job of the S60 and V60 to be the exciting cars in the lineup and they are both dead, and even before then the leadership decided to gut them in a dozen different ways.

Feckless company.

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Astramael@reddit

Also the fundamental engineering at Volvo is pretty bad. Nobody serious would look at the design of these cars under the hood or on a lift and say “this seems reasonable”. Long gone is the reliable tank of a car that Volvos used to be.

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kneedoorman@reddit

Maybe don’t build supercharged turbocharged hybrid powertrains that scare off people once the warranty’s up?

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Manafont-@reddit

I thought they didn't offer that powertrain any more?

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UniqueThanks@reddit

T8/recharge XC90 still has that powertrain IIRC

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Insanity-Paranoid@reddit

It doesn't; a lot of information online is incorrect, including Wikipedia. If you look at the window sticker of a post-2022 T8/Recharge Volvo, it states it's turbocharged, not twin-charged. The confusion comes from Volvo calling their twin-engine system. The twin engine is called that because there's a separate electric motor in the rear that drives the rear wheels.

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m_centofanti24@reddit

i’m not really sure where to start here. because a T8 engine IS twin-charged. it is the same exact engine as the B6 just with the added EV motor.

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corduroy@reddit

It's even more confusing. For the XC90, the T8 is not twin-charged/supercharger after 2023, but only with the extended battery (which is standard in 2024+). If it had the standard battery in 2023, I think it still had the supercharger. But I think all T6 models still have the supercharger until they renamed it the B6 and that's with the 48vild hybrid system.

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UniqueThanks@reddit

Wow so confusing haha. Thanks for the information

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Insanity-Paranoid@reddit

Yeah it really Is. I had to genuinely spend time looking at cars window stickers because I was considering buying a newer Volvo and the wording was tripping me up.

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Mnm0602@reddit

No it’s just turbo hybrid now. Since the 2022.5 longer range T8s.

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JALbert@reddit

Don't let facts get in the way of the circlejerk!

As a sidenote, it's been a decade of "oh twincharged so scary" posts on this subreddit but never any posts about it actually having reliability issues outside the norm for the class.

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Manafont-@reddit

Anecdotal but I had the T6 XC90, perfectly reliable all the years I owned it, and sold it to a family member and it has still been perfectly reliable.

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Bderken@reddit

The older T6 XC90 was the last reliable engine Volvo made.

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avboden@reddit

T6 reporting in. Super reliable. Only issue i've had was an air conditioning line going bad.

At higher milage some people have supercharger seal failures but that's about the only real issue with the twincharged engines. They're generally great units.

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lee1026@reddit

A generalized problem as cars gets increasingly long lived is that until a technology actually hits 20 years old, nobody knows if it will last 20 years.

And the boring stuff from 20 years ago are generally still on the road, doing car things.

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JALbert@reddit

It doesn't take 25 years to suss out reliability though. 8-10 maybe.

If something becomes an issue 20 years into ownership that's a damn reliable car.

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lee1026@reddit

In a world where I still see 2000 vintage cars going for $7-8k, a car that dies at 20 years old costed its owner a lot of money.

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rommi04@reddit

Cost. Costed is the wrong word in this situation

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burlyginger@reddit

I beat the fuck out of my 2017 V60 Polestar and it's absolutely fine.

It's the high boost (180hp/L) variant of the twin-charged motor.

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Pryffandis@reddit

The T6's have been fairly reliable, but the T8's that he was referring to are very poor reliability. Outside of the powertrain, Volvos in general also tend to have a lot of electronics and seals issues compared to the Germans + Lexus.

I like Volvo and wanted to get an XC90, but I really could not justify it after driving an X5. They're not even close from really any perspective except safety. The XC90 is a handsome SUV though...

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ManufacturerBest2758@reddit

They’re all transverse turbo i4s now

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dp_yolo@reddit

They don’t anymore, it’s either turbo or Ev with turbo or EV.

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halcykhan@reddit

Maybe also honor the warranty. They’re notorious for denying claims on shit like the ICM that controls the screen. And if you swap a used one in, they won’t honor the rest of the warranty until they replace it with a new one for $3k+

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RAMBIGHORNY@reddit

When those things are 10 years old, mechanics are going to run away as fast as humanly possible

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w0nderbrad@reddit

whaddaya mean? That engine is going to put their kids thru college

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thetrappster@reddit

Was seriously considering an XC40 for my wife, love the rise, interior quality, look, pretty much everything about it except 2 things:
1) Everything ia controlled by touchscreen.
2) Auto start-stop can't be disabled. At all. There is no button or menu option to allow you to turn it off when you start the car each time, like most cars.

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whitecow@reddit

I think if you get polestar optimization you can turn it off

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thetrappster@reddit

1500 buck to disable auto start-stop is ridiculous when we couldn't care less about the other Polestar upgrades.

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whitecow@reddit

Just saying it can be turned off if it's that important to you.

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OldeArrogantBastard@reddit

I had one of these as a rental and that was the biggest annoyance, especially since I was driving around and it was in the 80s most days. Another thing was the center display could not be dimmed at night. It was bright AF and I went through every possible menu option to turn it down and it just didn’t.

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kharathos@reddit

That 2nd point is a massive turn off. Can't they turn it off at the dealership?

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thetrappster@reddit

Sure, for 1500 bucks with the Polestar Optimization.

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kharathos@reddit

What the heck

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mondaymoderate@reddit

Making the feature turn back on every time you cycle the key is one thing but not allowing anyway to turn it off at all is just BS.

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thetrappster@reddit

Exactly. One in annoying, the other was the biggest reason for not buying the XC40.

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AnalBroFisting@reddit

I haven't been following Volvo much but how did they go from being known for building invincible cars to whatever they have now?

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Morbidly_Off_Piste@reddit

Even when it was a Swedish company, Volvo suffered with luxury creditability in the US. It was the go-to car for people who wanted Mercedes/BMW/Audi but had an extreme desire to "be different" from those folks....and also lacked the money to buy their models.

Now that it's yet another Chinese car company, is it any wonder that their sales are falling through the floor? I'm honestly amazed they're even still solvent in 2026.

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Erigion@reddit

The XC60 came out in 2017. It got refreshed in 2025.

You cannot go 10+ years on the same platform with the same exterior design.

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NoahFect@reddit

Porsche: LOL

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icecream_specialist@reddit

The exterior is not the issue. Across their whole lineup they are just about the best looking cars in the class

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Paper_Street_Soap@reddit

Unless you’re toyota/lexus.

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YeonneGreene@reddit

Or Dodge.

The Charger/Challenger were still selling pretty well when they were finally retired.

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Erigion@reddit

Jokes aside, Toyota/Lexus is releasing new generations of their best selling models every 7 years or so with a refresh in between. The XC60 isn't Volvo's Tacoma or 4runner.

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fire_n_ice@reddit

Or a Miata.

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DM725@reddit

XC90 begs to differ.

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bmwkid@reddit

Everyone I know who owns/wants a Volvo are not buying because they’re made in China instead of Sweden and the quality has arguably gone down.

Most of them would probably buy if they moved the XC90 back to being made in Gothenburg

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Apical-Meristem@reddit

As a Volvo owner I can say the software issue is real, but has been getting better with updates. The most recent update has been divisive in the Volvo subreddit. Volvo is all in with Google/AAOS and uses a 3rd party programmer. The cars are great and I have had little trouble other than with the AAOS. I think not enough progress has been made on the system and repeat buyers are staying away.

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ITSHOBBSMA@reddit

Prices are still an arm and a leg. Might be time to start slashing cost.

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DrSpaceman575@reddit

I really don't get the "hook" for Volvo - you don't get the prestige of the German brands, but you're not getting the value from someone like Mazda. No reason they should be priced near BMW and Mercedes competitors, especially if you can't even compete with those brands on reliability.

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aamgdp@reddit

Volvo used to be somewhere between premium and mainstream, both proce-wise and feature-wise... They've moved toward premium in price, bit features and quality moved in the other direction

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John-Footdick@reddit

Yeahhhh its been 3-4 years since I was cross shopping Volvo but their feature to price ratio was wild compared to other brands. "Performance" can only justify so much of the cost, and really im buying an suv for daily driving im not a fucking track racer.

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strangway@reddit

That makes it sound like a unique Volvo problem. Isn’t every automaker facing similar if not worse sales stats in the US YoY?

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feels6@reddit

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TheLeastSamurai@reddit

I would have bought an XC40 if not for the widespread reports of infotainment/electronic issues. I even rented one and the infotainment screen blacked out twice in three days.

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doughball27@reddit

i was just about to buy an s60 until i found out the same thing. this is their main problem -- as well as putting HVAC buttons in said infotainment that breaks all the time.

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glorious_bastard@reddit

I’ve had one for 4 years, might have crapped out once. It’s been a great car for us.

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doughball27@reddit

it's the infotainment system...

it's so bad there's a class action lawsuit. i don't know how they could fuck this up so badly.

the cars are actually pretty nice. but when the infotainment system reboots three times per drive, and it's the only way to control things like HVAC and maps, the car is basically unusable.

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Terry___Mcginnis@reddit

I feel like Volvo doesn't have appeal between young people (e.g: I'm 30yo and the dream of owning a Volvo doesn't make me wet like some german cars) + the fact that old customes might not like that they are owned by chinese now.

People haved moved to other brands maybe BMW or Toyota/Lexus.

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V8-Turbo-Hybrid@reddit

What about their Europe sales ? I ask that because you own Renault.

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takao-obi@reddit

Down -11 % this year until February so far compared to 2025.
Last year they were also down around 10% for the whole year compared to 2024.

They still are a little lost. Polestar is more positioned as a younger brand but what market segment is Volvo catering to exactly ? Their ties to Geely definitely have hurt their reputation with older buyers. They still have the 40-55 age group who were young when Volvos were cool. But they need some retro designs IMHO.

They really need the EX60 to be a big success. The local dealership really offered aggressive pricing on them. In launch week even before showroom cars came in. We were offered -20% off list prices for leasing them as company cars.
What I have heard is that Volvo really expected to be easily ahead of the BMW and MB, NKL and MMA platforms. And now they aren’t.

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Terry___Mcginnis@reddit

I think their sales numbers are really bad here. Much more than in the US because here the german brands are even more desired or VW just the first thing that comes to people's minds when they think about a car.

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VenFasz@reddit

as a volvo wagon's owner i am very disappointed with volvo's strategy. and seeing these numbers, i am not the only one.

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icecream_specialist@reddit

I want wagon with turbo i5 or i6 hybrid with normal AWD, not the twin engine thing on their phevs. Will never happen, will never make money. But think of the glory

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cat_prophecy@reddit

It's not like removing the V60 and V90 from their lineup changed anything. The yearly sales barely broke 5 digits. Some years it was barely 4 digits. The XC60 and XC90 outsold their Sedan/Wagon counterparts 4:1.

People are just not buying Volvos.

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ZaheerAlGhul@reddit

I've heard that XC90s are a double edged sword. Some cases they're very reliable and other cases where owners had their vehicle in and out of the dealer. They seem like great vehicles to lease.

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hi_im_bored13@reddit

Discontinued sedans/wagons and highly publicized software troubles may have contributed to the sharp sales decline

What are these articles lately lol first Subaru now this, their ICE platforms haven't been generationally redone in over 10yrs

It was followed by the XC60 on 8,061 units (-37%), the XC40 on 3,403 units (-47%),

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itsamemarioscousin@reddit

Bang on. The XC90 and XC60 just both got their second facelifts. They bet the farm on the EX60 and EX90 replacing those vehicles wholesale and are now caught out with oooold ICE options. Cadillac are in the exact same boat, minus the extremely important Escalade.

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zakary1291@reddit

I'm not surprised that Cadillac aren't refreshing most of their ice lineup. Marry Bara out right said that Cadillac will be a full EV brand by 2030.

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itsamemarioscousin@reddit

Volvo said very similar things. And that all looked perfectly sensible 4-5 years ago when Tesla could do no wrong and the industry was banking hard on EVs.

Turned out the public weren't as on board with the idea as the regulators thought they would be, and those who backed other horses are reaping the rewards.

Personally I think EVs are the future (particularly in Europe, where I live), but they won't be the only future for quite a while to come.

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Recoil42@reddit

Turned out the public weren't as on board with the idea as the regulators thought they would be, and those who backed other horses are reaping the rewards.

There's some forest-for-the-trees retconning going on here missing one crucial part of the formula — the regulators were listening to the EV proponents who were all making grandiose promises about how quickly the EVs would improve, how quickly their costs would go down, and how many of them they would make.

Consumers were on-board with a $40k Cybertruck, but a $40k Cybertruck doesn't exist in the year 2026, and the Cybertruck itself didn't exist at all back in 2022 when it was originally supposed to hit the road. The timelines were shams.

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itsamemarioscousin@reddit

Well, if there's one thing we've learned in the past decade, it's don't believe any promises on product timing or pricing from Tesla.

Others have been guilty of it too, given, but investment stalled due by slow sales and massive depreciation on their initial models. Costs of production (particularly energy) have been going up even while battery material costs have been reducing, meaning the projected savings haven't materialised.

"...and the whole entire industry hurt itself in its confusion" is right. The penalties for not complying with the regulations was a big driver for offering EVs.

They're still there in the UK and Europe (if being watered down a bit), but in the US, the disappearance of California & Section 177 states' ZEV mandates (where the bill from 26MY was to be $16k per EV not sold), CAFE penalties ($190ish per MPG per car off target), and recently federal GHG rules (buy credits or face obliteration [buy back & scrap cars until a compliant fleet remains, and pay $37k in fines for each vehicle bought back, and that's all before the unhappy former owners sue you!]) has really made EVs an optional thing to offer in the States.

All in all it's a big complicated mess!

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Recoil42@reddit

People don't realize how big the CAFE thing is, and I would even estimate >50% of this sub doesn't even know it happened at all. It's wild. That one thing alone has shaped at least the next two decades of US automotive and may have cemented the decline of the US auto industry entirely.

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Recoil42@reddit

Mary Barra said a lot of things; she's backed out of most of them: Cadillac Walks Back Only EVs by 2030 Plan

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hi_im_bored13@reddit

Yeah + EX30 was doomed w/ import regs even before this admin

Caddy has money to dump on the Escalade & its EV siblings at least. 2015 XC90 probably one of the best aging vehicles because its just the same exact car lol

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punchandrip@reddit

What is silly about these articles is that there was an artificial bump Q1 last year due to impending tariffs. Foreign car manufacturers felt the greatest effects from this bump. Literally every car maker is going to be down from Q1 last year since It was not a normal sales quarter. But I guess you can't sell clicks with nuance.

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Mnm0602@reddit

Volvo really fucked up with their SPA2 update. At some point I think it was truly going to be an update to the ICE/Hybrid and then it turned into EV only with no planned update on ICE. Someone internally must have seen the costs of EVs and development of the EX90 too late to stop/delay/revise it but early enough to get a facelift of the XC90/XC60 going and work on the EX60 (SPA3).

Honestly SPA has been so good in terms of looks and driving dynamics they haven’t had to do much to it, but obviously it’s getting old and they’ve stretched it about as much as they can. We like our 2025.5 XC90 T8 but the interior layout just feels dated/simple and isn’t space efficient at all.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

[removed]

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AutoModerator@reddit

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TweeksTurbos@reddit

We want volvo wagons not suvs

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Comical_Tremor@reddit

And we want then brown

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Snakepli55ken@reddit

I wanted an xc90 for forever. But by the time I could get one they add the interior cabin camera and they lock the speedometer to like 110mph. No thanks.

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dragon_stryker@reddit

Only the EX90 has the interior cabin camera

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Snakepli55ken@reddit

Thanks. Edited it.

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sri_peeta@reddit

lock the speedometer to like 110mph.

Such an odd flaw to focus on.

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Snakepli55ken@reddit

At least you can admit it is a flaw…

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Ill-Scientist-2663@reddit

Why on earth would you want to take an XC90 over 110mph anyways

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Blaze4G@reddit

He is trying to take his family to the future.

110+ mph in a 3 row SUV is crazy. I wouldn't even do that in most SUVs unless it's a performance SUV x5m, cayenne turbo, urus, etc

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Ineverseenthat@reddit

Had Volvo 90 suv rental in Ireland, good power, nice ride, quiet interior.

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CuriousThenSatisfied@reddit

From what I’ve seen, their latest offerings haven’t been rated super-highly…Maybe make a better vehicle?

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REU512@reddit

Shocker, people don't actually want cars built in China

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Recoil42@reddit

Volvo doesn't build any of their US market cars in China.

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gdnws@reddit

The 2018-2025 S90 was made in China.

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Recoil42@reddit

Did I fucking stutter?

The year is 2026, Volvo doesn't build any of their US market cars in China.

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gdnws@reddit

The aggression is unnecessary, they very recently sold a car in the US market that was manufactured in China.

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Recoil42@reddit

Very recently is not now. We are in now, now. In the time that is now, Volvo doesn't build any of their US market cars in China.

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Cranjesmcbasketball1@reddit

The commenter didn't specify time frame so we can only assume he was referring to the time frame of the article which cites Q1 2026 sales, meaning cars that were made in 2025 and sold in 2026.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

[removed]

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Political discussion is prohibited. However, if your post involves politics AND CARS, please consider submitting to /r/CarsOffTopic.

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Drawmaster63@reddit

All US market cars for Volvo are either built in Gothenburg, Sweden or North Carolina, US.

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gdnws@reddit

The recently departed S90 after 2018 and extremely uncommon and less recently departed S60L were both made in China. Also many models were made in Ghent, Belgium as well.

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Drzhivago138@reddit

And the circlejerk continues.

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TicketAmbitious6200@reddit

People vote with their wallet. Instead of doubling down and telling us what we should want, listen to the feedback and make cars that we do want.

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-WallyWest-@reddit

Wanted to buy a V60 Recharge (T8) in 2022-3. Waited a year without any answers and the Price raised by 10k for some reason. Bought a Golf R mk8 instead.

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definitelyainoreally@reddit

I walked into my local Volvo last year and they wouldn't give me a discount aside from the Costco deal. They had an XC60 polestar on the lot and apparently didn't want to sell it. So I went over to BMW instead. It was on their lot for another 3 months.

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