Come together: EX90 gets Abbey Road Mode over the air – more upgrades incoming

Abbey Road – the legendary studios where The Beatles pioneered new sounds, where the Star Wars orchestral score was brought to life, and where almost a century of musical innovation has been delivered – is coming to Volvo’s own new technical masterpiece, the EX90.

Owners don’t have to do anything – because the update is coming wirelessly over-the-air, free of charge, which will be music to the ears of EX90 drivers that opted for the Bowers & Wilkins High Fidelity Audio system.

Abbey Road Mode, developed by Bowers & Wilkins together with Abbey Road Studios, is inspired by the studio’s characteristic acoustic spaces and the sonic signature of the equipment used by artists and engineers to create some of the most revered albums in music history, delivering a unique listening experience inside the EX90.

Artists including Pink Floyd, Nick Cave, Kate Bush, Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga, Massive Attack, Amy Winehouse, Radiohead, Blur, Oasis, Ella Fitzgerald, Little Richard, Elton John, Jeff Beck, Duran Duran, plus legends of the classical world such as Sergei Prokofiev, Maria Callas, Igor Stravinsky and Yehudi Menuhin have all recorded and honed their music at Abbey Road Studios.

The 1610-watt optional Bowers & Wilkins audio system was developed and tuned through close collaboration between Bowers & Wilkins and Volvo Cars. It brings an exceptional sound experience to the cabin via 25 carefully positioned speakers.

Now that experience is about to get even crisper as the hardware and software come together over the air.

More updates incoming

The Abbey Road Mode over-the-air update will be one of Volvo Cars’ most significant to date, with further upgrades planned across the fleet. Many of these will apply to Volvos sold as far back as 2020, or circa 2.5 million cars across 85 countries.

Just like computers and mobile phones, over-the-air updates will be released regularly.

It means Volvo owners no longer have to visit dealerships for every upgrade.

Instead, owners just have to enable software updates in the Volvo app, and they will download automatically when the car is connected to the internet. Then a notification will appear both in the app and the car’s display to tell users that they can install the update now – or can schedule the update for later.

Just like a phone or laptop, the car can’t be used when the update is taking place – and for electric cars it’s recommended that the battery is at least 50 per cent charged before updating.

The aim is to make all of Volvo Cars better over time – and make the user experience the best it can be.

Next off the rank is Volvo Car UX, an infotainment system upgrade that will roll-out this year to all cars with Google built-in.

In the meantime, Volvo’s engineers are already refining the next generation of software – which means more features, functionality and value for millions of customers, current and new.