Minivans haven’t gotten their proper dues in a few decades. Back in the 1970s, people loved and cherished minivans as cool cars worth building and customizing. Since then, the minivan fell from grace. It slowly morphed into something “only moms drive.” These days, it doesn’t even get that level of respect. This must change. Thankfully, Volvo is working on a luxury minivan, and with a little luck, maybe the Swedes can make the minivan cool again. 

Are any new minivans coming out? 

Volvo has been hard at work on the Volvo EM90; a high-end luxury minivan with an all-electric powertrain. Volvo has done little more than tease the new minivan so far, but renderings have been popping up, taking a stab at what the van could look like. Whether it will be an electric minivan or not is still anyone’s guess.

Yes, the Volvo you see here is a speculative render. However, that doesn’t mean it’s completely made up. This render is derived from peeks from the teaser images and videos. There is also good reason to suspect that Volvo wouldn’t make an all-new van from scratch. It would cost the firm a bundle to design an all-new van, and given the lack of popularity of vans, this might be a tall order. 

Can Volvo sell a new minivan? 

Many car companies are owned by larger corporations that house multiple carmakers in one portfolio. Volvo is no different. Geely is the parent company that owns Volvo. Geely also owns Polestar, Lotus, Lynk & Co, Zeekr, Geometry, London Electric Vehicle Company, Proton, Radar Auto, Farizon Auto, Ouling Auto, and more. This means that Volvo has quite a pool to pull chassis and other parts from to build its new van. 

Volvo says that the EM90 will have sliding doors on both sides of the van. As with any minivan worth its salt, the EM90 will have three spacious rows for seating. That said, there is a chance that it could offer a super-luxurious two-row version. Given that “90” is in the name, we suspect it will be quite large. 

There’s a decent shot that the Volvo minivan might lean on the Zeekr 009 design. This striking van could be radical enough to get buyers interested in a minivan. It could be an electric minivan. Granted, it is worth mentioning that vans are much easier to sell in the European and Asian markets. Americans are the ones struggling to let the minivan back into our lives. The problem is Volvo doesn’t plan to sell the van in America or in Europe. That leaves the Asian market as the main focus. However, a Volvo spokesperson told Automotive News the van could come to other markets in the future. 

The Volvo EM90 is sweet, but it’s just another dream

Cool vans seem to always elude Americans. On the one hand, you can’t blame any automaker for withholding a new van model from us; we don’t buy them. On the other hand, I just want cool vans here. It’s not unlike the Land Cruiser. Sure, we didn’t buy enough of them, and Toyota Took them away. We got sad and went crazy on old ones. Now, Toyota is bringing the Land Cruiser back to here. Maybe we are just on punishment, and we will get cool minivans once we’ve thought about what we’ve done.