I found a double-corrugated box with folds that are about the right width spanning between the two 2nd row outboard seats, and decided to make a prototype out of it. The double corrugated box can be quite stiff along the groove direction, and with some strategic folds with the same principle as steel I-beams, it seems like a good material that can survive for a while.

I made 5 folds along the direction of the height of the photo (from top to bottom): the folded section is the vertical & forward-facing side; the next section will host a phone charger pad; the next one is a transition to the arm rest / storage area; the last one is the vertical & backward-facing side. Bottom front area is upholstered with dark grey felt material like in the rest of the OE interior that comes with charcoal-colored seats.

 

For the storage opening, I made use of every piece as side reinforcement and the main spine of the lid. Part of the main spine of the lid flares to allow for a pair of smaller secondary opening under the arm rests.

 

Sheet metal shaped to clamp the receiver on the main structure, so that the lid can close snugly and silently:

 

For the cup holder, I used excess upholstery material to fold into the cup holder. This way, any small bottle/cup can fit snugly by folding the excess upholstery material as needed.

 

The front area holds a wireless phone charging pad for 2, and the rear opening is for "carry on luggage" storage.

 

For long road trips, if one occupant uses their side of the inboard arm rest and falls asleep, that main lid won't be accessible. The arm rest pads are part of the main lid, but has its own secondary hinge along the centerline. You can't take out large objects, but at least it is better than no access at all:

 

I just came back from a road trip with many hours on the road; overall it did what it was supposed to do. Looks like the pass-through to the 3rd row/cargo area can be made a bit bigger.

 

Updates: Modifiedthe arm rests' shape to follow the tapered edge of the OE 1st row center arm rest, upholstered the cargo access panel, added light pipe for wireless charger, and added curved trim on the sides similar to OE door card insert.

 

This is such a cool idea, and I wish I could follow along, but your images don't seem to show up, just a circle with bar. Thought i would mention it

 

Thanks for mentioning. Odd. When I use a different computer that doesn't recognize my swedespeed logon credentials, chrome browser shows image in posts 1 - 9. On Edge and IE browsers, only the 2 images in post #1 show up. Maybe it has to do with the images hosted in google photos playing nice with Chrome but not other browsers?

 

It could be related to the public/anonymous users lacking permissions to view those images. When I try in a "private browser" window of Chrome i still see the "no-entry" icon. I tried loading the image link directly, which takes me to Google Photos, but I cannot view the image because it's not publicly viewable. Eg image link

 

It could be related to the public/anonymous users lacking permissions to view those images.

Thanks. Looks like unlike my other Volvo folders, it didn't have the "Share" attribute enabled. I just updated the images, hopefully they show up.

 

I like where you're going with this. The problem you're solving is exactly why I didn't want a 6-seater.The "captain's chairs" are just the same without the middle bench seat, and I would get no functional gain from taking the middle seat out. and/or could accomplish that by taking out my middle seat now (I'm sure it's more complex than that, but you get my point). However, if it had been filled with a console or the outboard seats had arm rests, my opinion would have probably been different.

I'm curious to see where this idea goes, despite having no use for it since I have a 7-seater 😁

 

I like where you're going with this.

Thanks. I see different pros and cons for 7, 6, 5, and 4 seat configurations. When only 6 people need to go, I prefer the 6 seat better than the 7 seat configuration, because it makes the 3rd row occupant less "exiled", and gives them the ingress/egress option via the "aisle". I've done 3 road trips with this configuration so far (carrying 4 people total).
One thing I'm considering is to give up the passthrough and replace it with a refrigerated box, similar to the SPA xc90 Excellence trim.

Btw, since you brought up removing the middle 2nd row seat, there is a thread discussing just that, including the additional OE trim pieces to finish the visual conversion: Remove middle seat in 2nd row on 2016 XC90?

 

I can see the pics now!! Very handy work there, satrya! I also agree that a cooler box would be a neat solution here!

 

Thank you, and thanks for confirming about my photo-hosting setting oversight.

Here is an image of the excellence trim's cooler box feature (image source credit):

At the moment, my prototype is a simple passthrough