Volvo installs lifesaving radar inside 2025 EX90 electric SUV

NEWPORT BEACH, California – Volvo is about to make it impossible to leave a child or pet trapped in a hot vehicle.

A system in the 2025 EX90 electric SUV uses seven radar sensors to detect virtually any living creature left in a locked vehicle. The sensors are concealed in the overhead console, reading lamps and cargo compartment.

They detect movements in the footwells, seats or cargo compartment of the three-row family hauler, Volvo product planner Gary Kalsaria told me over dinner after I spent a day driving the EX90 recently. They scan the interior every time you lock the car. If the system detects movement, the driver gets a message to check the interior, and the doors will not lock.

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The extremely precise radar detects “micro movements” smaller than a millimeter — as subtle as a blanket’s rise and fall with the breathing of a sleeping child — Kalsaria said. The system will not lock the door if it detects movement inside.

Always on guard

Volvo says more than 900 children have died in hot vehicles in the United States since recordkeeping began in 1998. There’s no estimate of the number of animals that have perished in hot vehicles.

The system is always active, unless the driver disables it.

Even if the driver overrides the alert, the Volvo turns on its climate control to protect occupants from heat or hypothermia. The climate control keeps running until the EV’s 111 kW battery is drained.

After a set period, the alert also unlocks the doors and rolls down the windows to keep occupants from overheating.

Volvo won’t comment on future plans for the system, but it’d be surprising if the safety-conscious brand doesn’t deploy it widely.

Hyundai and Toyota will offer single-radar interior sensing in the 2025 Tucson SUV and Sienna minivan, respectively, this year.

Those systems are likely to be available before EX90 sales begin, but they have fewer sensors and lack some of the Volvo’s other capabilities.

The EX90 goes on sale late this year. Prices will start at $79,995.

Contact Mark Phelan: 313-222-6731 or mmphelan@freepress.com . Follow him on Twitter @ mark_phelan . Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter . Become a subscriber .

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Volvo installs lifesaving radar inside 2025 EX90 electric SUV