Volvo prepares to go electric
ALL Volvo car models launched after 2019 will be electric or hybrids, the Chinese-owned company said yesterday, making it the first major traditional producer to set a date for phasing out vehicles powered solely by the internal combustion engine.
The Sweden-based company will continue to produce pure combustion-engine Volvos from models launched before that date, but its move signals the eventual end of nearly a century of Volvos powered solely that way.
While electric and hybrid vehicles are still only a small fraction of new cars sales, they are gaining ground at the premium end of the market, where Volvo operates.
As technology improves and prices fall, many in the industry expect mass-market adoption to follow.
The company said five new models set to be launched from 2019 to 2021 would all be fully electric.
“These five cars will be supplemented by a range of petrol and diesel plug-in hybrid and mild hybrid 48-volt options on all models,” Volvo said.
“This means that there would in future be no Volvo cars without an electric motor.”
The electric models will be produced at Volvo plants world-wide, while development costs would be met from within its existing budget, Volvo Cars chief executive Hakan Samuelsson said.
“This also means we won’t be doing other things. We, of course, will not be developing completely new generations of combustion engines,” he said.
Volvo has invested heavily in new models and plants since being bought by the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group from Ford in 2010, establishing a niche in a premium car market dominated by larger rivals such as Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
Part of its strategy has also been to embrace emerging technologies that allow higher performance electric vehicles as well as, eventually, selfdriving cars.
Only last month, Volvo said it would reshape its Polestar business into a standalone brand, focused on high-performance electric cars aimed at competing with Tesla and the Mercedes AMG division.