During Capital Markets Day held in Gothenburg, Sweden, Volvo Cars revealed its new approach to technology, which the company said will define its future by channeling all its engineering efforts into one direction: making cars that get better with time. Starting with the EX90, Volvo Cars said its future electric cars will be based on the same fundamental core of systems, modules, software and hardware, called the Volvo Cars Superset tech stack – a single tech and software base that contains all modules and functionalities that it will use in its future product line-up. Volvo Cars said it can be configured in many ways like a set of building blocks. Each of its new cars will be a selection, or a subset, of building blocks from the Superset tech stack.

According to Volvo Cars, this means that its work on the EX90 will directly benefit the ES90, and that the work done for ES90 will carry on – both into the development of EX60 coming after it, as well as improving the EX90 already in the hands of its customers, and so on.

Volvo Cars said it will do closed-loop development based on data, connectivity, software and core computing. By creating a closed-loop development process, the company said it will be able to improve every aspect of its cars, thanks to real-time insight and computing capabilities inside of them, as well as by its engineers in development centers.

Volvo Cars said it is also developing a new electric technology base, called SPA3, which will be underpinned by the Volvo Cars Superset tech stack. Its first car to be built on SPA3 will be the forthcoming all-electric EX60 midsize SUV.

According to the manufacturer, SPA3 builds on many of the building blocks of SPA2 and introduces several upgrades. It will, for example, have an enhanced core computing capability, Volvo Cars said. But, Volvo Cars said the most important change is that the SPA3 architecture has been built to be more scalable than its predecessor, meaning that, if it wanted, the manufacturer could continuously develop and build cars of all sizes – larger than the EX90 and smaller than the EX30 – using the same technology base.