The crucial new Volvo EX60 electric family SUV, described as a "cornerstone" of the firm's future line-up, will be revealed on 21 January.

The Swedish firm has been gradually hyping the launch of the new EV for months and CEO Håkan Samuelsson has now confirmed its reveal date on social media platform LinkedIn with an early look at the finished car.

Tucked behind a group of workers at the Torslanda plant in Gothenburg, where it will be produced, it appears to have a low bonnet line and a smoother, more aerodynamic design than its combustion-engined counterpart, the XC60.

Narrow front headlights featuring Volvo's 'Thor's Hammer' design, similar to those on the EX90 large SUV, can also be seen.

Samuelsson said the car has been "designed and developed in Gothenburg" and "can't get much more Swedish". 

Volvo confirmed that the EX60 will be its first car to use the firm's "latest technology base", adding that it will "deliver a longer electric range than any Volvo car before it". It is set to beat the Volvo ES90 saloon, which is expected to offer an official WLTP range of 435 miles using a 106kWh battery.

The new technology base that the EX60 will use is Volvo's advanced, highly scalable SPA3 platform, which is effectively a successor to the platform that underpins the EX90 and ES90. This new architecture will allow Volvo to add both smaller and larger cars to its line-up, and can accommodate a wide range of battery sizes.

As with those models, the EX60 will be designed around an advanced software stack, giving it the capability to accept over-the-air updates and extra features.

Anders Bell, Volvo's engineering and technology chief, called the SPA3 platform "100% electric and 100% Volvo Cars", rather than a shared Geely group platform, such as the SEA platform used for the EX30 crossover.

"Because it's 100% electric, we've been able to remove all the old constraints of the combustion engine," said Bell. "We very much took a first-principles approach to it. You will see the highest level of supremely well-integrated technology coming together in these products."

The EX60 is likely to broadly match the dimensions of the XC60 (pictured below), the brand's best-selling car.

Bell said the SPA3 is “a big step from a mechanical perspective, but from a software electronics perspective it's a straight evolution”.

He added: “All the work we're putting into the EX90 will go directly into the SPA3 cars as well. It's basically the same software stack.

"SPA3 is designed from the beginning to be much more scalable, in size and price point and across regions, but also scalable in volume.

"It's designed for scale in every dimension: when it comes to size, my job is to make sure that the company has optionality. We are designing [the SPA3] to be scalable from B to F [segments], to make sure that we have flexibility and that we can launch the products that markets decide they want when they want it.”

Since all future new Volvo models will share the same basic tech stack, Bell added that it will allow for more focused and rapid development. “Because it’s all one technology stack, there's no repeat of work,” he said. “It's the same software stack, same basic electrical architecture. Yes, it's scalable in size, price and capabilities, but it's not spreading our products in different ecosystems. 

“Everything we do gets married to the Volvo connected car cloud. If you look at successful tech companies, they're all single tech stack companies where all their products are interlinked. Apple is a good example: hardware, software, telephones, laptops – they’re basically all interconnected with the same software. That’s one example of where we need to be converging as a technology company going forward.

"Our focal point is safety, sustainability and creating this fantastic customer experience, all wrapped in this Scandinavian design, on one tech stack."

As previously revealed by Autocar, the EX60 will also be the first Volvo designed to benefit from megacasting – a technology set to be introduced with the SPA3 that allows for entire sections of a car to be created as a single part rather than multiple elements.

That, along with other changes and the more modular nature of the SPA3, will lower production costs.

When it arrives, Volvo's EV line-up in Europe will consist of the EX30, EC40, EX40, EX60, ES90 and EX90, with the addition of the EM90 MPV in China.