The Biggest New Vehicle Discount Available Right Now? $23,500 Off a Volvo XC90

In anticipation of a welcoming party for 2018 models, non-Volvo luxury car owners are currently eligible for a discount valued at $23,500 on a handful of remaining copies of the 2017 Volvo XC90 T8 Excellence.

There’s only one problem. The Volvo XC90 T8 Excellence is not exactly the most affordable member of the second-generation XC90 lineup. In fact, the T8 Excellence is the most expensive XC90 in America — by a wide margin. While the XC90 range opens at $46,745 for a five-seat front-wheel-drive variant, the T8 Hybrid turns on the lights with 400-horsepower for $69,895. Bump up another couple of trim levels and you’ll find yourself at the — let me clear my throat — $105,895 XC90 T8 Excellence.

Yet the $20,000 bonus Volvo is paying to dealers for XC90s in T8 Excellence trim means the laughably high $105,895 price — $1,005 more than a Land Rover Range Rover Supercharged — and a $3,500 conquest bonus drops the $105,895 XC90 T8 Excellence way down to $82,395.

It also means you lay hold on what CarsDirect’s Alex Bernstein says is, “the single largest discount on any vehicle at the moment.”

Cars.com lists 45 copies of the T8 Excellence in dealer inventory at the moment, leaving little opportunity for prospective customers to get their hands on a Volvo flagship that’s discounted by 22 percent. Those customers will truly have a hankering for high-end content, as the powertrain is not just available in the $69,895 T8 R-Design but the identically priced T8 Inscription, the latter of which is the highest trim level for non-hybrid 316-horsepower XC90s.

The Excellence features reclining second row captain’s chairs (and no third row) accompanied by a refrigerator, standard 19-speaker Bowers & Wilkins audio, North American walnut inlays, nubuck textile headliner, and the Orrefors crystal gear shifter that made headlines before the XC90 was even on sale.

Volvo’s conquest bonus won’t work if you daily drive a ’97 Cavalier. If you don’t drive an Acura, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Infiniti, Jeep, Lexus, Lincoln, or Mercedes-Benz, the $3,500 conquest bonus is not for you. If you do own a vehicle from one such brand, you don’t need to trade it in. Ownership is enough.

In the past, Volvo told TTAC that huge discounts on the XC90 T8 Excellence were of little relevance to the overall XC90 picture, with the Excellence trim accounting for less than 1 percent of U.S. XC90 sales volume. With some reported supply issues due to unexpectedly strong global demand, Volvo expected to see XC90 sales recover in the latter portion of 2017. Sales through the first seven months of 2017 are down 23 percent — a sharp drop for a model that brought the Volvo brand back to a nine-year sales high in 2016.

Added to the $23,500 discount on the XC90 T8 Excellence is a $4,585 federal tax credit. Lesser 2017 XC90s also benefit from significant discounts at the moment, but nothing that compares with the Excellence’s massive rebate. Look for at least $5,000 off T6 models, conquest bonus included, and some very attractive lease offers.

[Images: Volvo Cars]

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.