Volvo cars to go electric — and online-only from 2030
Volvo Cars set an ambitious goal to sell only battery cars by 2030, accelerating its plans after sales of electric vehicles surged.
The Chinese-owned Swedish brand is rolling out a new lineup of electric cars and will unveil its second battery-only model later Tuesday. Going one step further than recent rivals’ decisions on EVs, Volvo’s electric vehicles will be available for sale only online, the company said in a statement.
“We choose to invest in the future — electric and online,” Chief Executive Officer Hakan Samuelsson said. “We are fully focused on becoming a leader in the fast-growing premium electric segment.”
Volvo’s move follows rivals including Jaguar Land Rover, General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG announcing plans to electrify their offerings. In addition to tough emissions regulation, incredible valuations garnered by EV-only newcomers have been a wakeup call to accelerate the pace of change to survive industry upheaval.
The decision also comes days after Volvo and Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd., both owned by parent Zhejiang Geely Holding Co., dropped a plan to merge to instead deepen ties to quicken the pace of development. The pair will share vehicle platforms, software stacks and advanced connectivity, and will hive off their powertrain activities into a separate unit.
With the support of its Chinese owners, Volvo has ramped up investment in electric cars since 2017, when it first said it was planning to phase out vehicles that rely on combustion engines. Still, the company has only one fully electric model under its own brand name on the market, the compact crossover XC40 Recharge. In addition, Polestar, which is jointly owned by Volvo and Geely, launched its challenger to Tesla Inc.’s Model 3 in 2019.
Volvo has previously said it will plow roughly 5% of annual revenue into research and development, and that amount will be enough to finance the EV push, Samuelsson told reporters. The company sold more than 660,000 cars last year and reported fullyear revenue of $31.2 billion (263 billion Swedish kronor).
By 2025, Volvo expects half of the cars it sells to be fully electric and the other half to be hybrids, including so-called mild hybrids that don’t feature a plug. Volvo has been selling cars online as part of its Care by Volvo subscription offering in since 2016.