Volvo drops lidar for good on EX90 and ES90, pays owner compensation

This one isn't about home energy upgrades, but here's what happened. Volvo has scrapped plans to use lidar (a roof-mounted laser sensor for driver-assist features) on its EX90 and ES90 electric vehicles, and it's paying owners compensation for a feature they were promised but will never get. Volvo cut ties with its lidar supplier, Luminar, last November over supply issues, and Luminar later filed for bankruptcy, leaving Volvo without a working sensor to support the features it had marketed.

Owners are being compensated differently depending on where they live: about $1,900 in Norway, roughly $1,600 off pending orders in Sweden, around $1,500 in optional packages (things like charging credits or a maintenance plan) in the US, €1,500 in the Netherlands, and C$2,000 in Canada. Volvo says the cars remain safe without the lidar, since they still rely on radar, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors built into the vehicle.

This is purely car and technology news, not a home energy story, so there's nothing here about insulation, heat pumps, rebates, or other home upgrades. If you're a Volvo EX90 or ES90 owner, the compensation details above are the practical takeaway. For everyone else, it's simply a sign of how automakers handle unfulfilled hardware promises on new vehicles.