Volvo goes electric

Swedish car maker steps away from conventional power.

Bob Dylan famously did it and was called Judas by a heckling folkie.

There’s no sign of Volvo’s decision to go electric raising such hackles, however. In a remarkable move, the Swedish car maker has announced that by 2019 every single model it produces will be either fully electric or hybrid.

The move makes it the first traditional manufacturer to call time on vehicles powered entirely by an internal combustion engine.

Volvo will introduce a portfolio of electrified cars across its model range, embracing fully electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars and mild-hybrid cars.

It will launch five fully electric cars between 2019 and 2021, three of which will be Volvo models and two of which will be high-performance electrified cars from Polestar, Volvo Cars’ performance car arm. Full details of these models will be announced at a later date.

Based in Gothenburg, Sweden, Volvo Cars is now owned by Geely of China, and seems also to have been influenced by its parents’ activities at home, where there has been a radical shift in attitudes towards pollution.

China – motivated by a need to clean up its air and reduce imports of oil – is now pushing electric vehicles hard. Last year Chinese electric vehicle sales reached 507,000 units, compared to 221,000 across Europe and some

Volvo has become the first traditional, mainstream car maker to abandon fully petrol or electric vehicles. Just two years from now, all new Volvos will be either fully electric or hybrid.