In January 2002, when Volvo first launched the XC90 at the Detroit Motor Show, the automaker was ahead of the SUV craze. The XC90 represented Volvo’s first SUV, a car that its customers had been asking for some time, and when sales began in 2003, a total of 15,000 orders were already on the books. With the XC90’s new anti-roll system and protections; with tensioners in every seat belt of every seat, the legend of the XC90 continued to grow, with 636,143 of the first generation XC90 made before the second generation XC90 launched in 2014.
With the second generation, production and sales would sharply rise, with 107,549 XC90 units sold in a single year in 2023 alone. With the latest refreshed XC90 of ‘25, the facelift features a host of styling upgrades: a more sculpted hood, slimmer ‘Thor’s Hammer’ LED headlights, wider central air intakes and an interior with a redesigned dashboard, streamlined air vents and ambient lighting upgrades.
The evolution of the XC90 also echoes the life journey of two friends, Lai Chee Hoe, a partner at Chee Hoe & Associates, and Foo Tee Jay, project director at PC Construction. Their early years were one of expectation and potential, in which their formative years shaped their personalities, and respective careers. Today, with four decades of friendship between the both of them, they remain steadfast friends, living separate lives but always present for each other’s key progression points.
And in the same way that their lives have reached an inflection point through their careers and life paths, so too has Volvo with its statement-defining new EX90 of 2025. This full-sized, lifestyle-oriented, all-electric family SUV signals the start of a new era for the Swedish carmaker—a luxury electric SUV blessed with an abundance of depth and function.
Watch Conversation in Motion, a video podcast on Lai and Foo onboard the Volvo XC90 and EX90, as they reflect on their origins, journey and present state.
Filmed by The Spacemen
