Volvo switching gears to electric, hybrid vehicles
Volvo plans to build only electric and hybrid vehicles starting in 2019, making it the first major automaker to abandon cars and SUVS powered solely by the internal combustion engine.
CEO Hakan Samuelsson said the move was dictated by customer demand. It means that in two years, all new Volvo vehicles will have some form of electric propulsion.
The rest of the auto industry is likely to make similar moves in a few years, said Sam Abuelsamid, senior analyst for Navigant Research, with luxury automakers leading the way.
“I think we’ll probably see most of the premium brands do the same thing in roughly the same time frame,” he said. “More high-volume mainstream brands will be a little slower.”
In order to meet government fuel economy requirements worldwide, automakers are developing more hybrid systems that use both gas engines and electric motors. Many are 48volt “mild hybrids” that assist a gas engine to move a car to make it more efficient, improving gas mileage by 10 or 15 per cent, Abuelsamid said.
Such systems generate enough electricity to allow automakers to move functions such as air conditioners and water and oil pumps to electric power, getting rid of mechanical belts that are a drag on the engine. Those systems can run only when needed, and that can save another 2 or 3 per cent on fuel consumption - so a vehicle that gets 20 mpg could get about another four miles per gallon he said.
European luxury brands such as Audi and Mercedes-benz already are rolling out mild hybrid systems on cars in Europe. Those systems likely will be coming to the U.S. because it’s expensive for the companies to build different cars for different markets, Abuelsamid said. General Motors and others already have such systems as options on some models in the U.S.
Cars with mild hybrid systems also can accelerate better because both electric and gas systems can be used at the same time when needed.
Fully electric and hybrid vehicle sales have risen a little since 2012 but still accounted for only 2.6 million, or about 3 per cent of worldwide new vehicle sales, last year. Navigant predicts that will increase to around 3.7 million in 2018 and to more than 9 million by 2025. That’s about 9 per cent of sales.
Volvo, which is based in Sweden but owned by Chinese firm Geely, will launch five fully electric cars between 2019 and 2021. Three of them will be Volvo models and two will be electrified cars from Polestar, Volvo Cars’ performance car arm.