Volvo to phase out petrol cars from 2019
By
Ilgin Karlidag
Swedish car maker Volvo Cars said on Wednesday it plans to phase out production of conventional petrol- only cars from 2019, with all new models to be either electric or hybrids.
The Go then bur g-based group is the first major manufacturer to electrify all of its models and to set out a road map for the gradual end to the internal combustion engine, a century and a half after it was invented.
Volvo, owned by China’s Geely, said it plans to launch five fully electric models between 2019 and 2021, three under its own brand and two under the Pole star brand, as well as a range of hybrid models.
Polestar isa subsidiary special is in gin highperformance electric vehicles and is a rival to California-based Tesla, which is about to launch production of its first lower priced car ,“Model 3”.
“This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car,” Volvo Cars president and chief executive Hakan Samuelsson said in a statement.
A Volvo Cars spokesman said the first fully electric car would be manufactured in China, and that the production location of the other four was yet to be determined.
The car maker, which posted record sales in 2016, noted that “consumers are increasingly pleased with electrified cars” and that it intends to respond to the growing demand for cleaner and less polluting vehicles.
A Volvo Cars spokesman said the c ompany w ould c ontinue to ma nufacture e xisting pe trol or d iesel- only mo dels l aunched before 2 019, but t hey w ill gradually be replaced by hybrid and fully electric cars.
The a nnouncement c omes a week after Gee ly unveiled a research and innovation centre in Gothenburg, focusing on the development of electric vehicles.
“When we said it,we meant it. This is how we are going to do it,” Samuelsson said in the statement.
In an interview with the German daily Frankfurt er All ge me ineZeitung(F AZ) in May, Samuels son had said he did not want to develop a new generation of diesel engines because of the high costs of stricter regulations.
EU legislation, which sets mandatory emission targets for cars, stipulates that, by 2021, the emissions of a ll new models and cars must not exceed 95 grammes of CO 2 emissions per kilometre on average. Failure to comply would result in a fine.
In Sweden, the government plans to raise the tax rate on CO2 emissions in 2 018, which would lead to a fivefold increase in the rate for some cars.
In concrete terms, that would translate into increasing taxes to 630 euros ( RM3,066) per year for an owner of aVolvoV90T54WD and to more than 1,500 eur os for an owner of an SUV BM X X6 M, according to calculations by specialist magazine, TeknikensVarld.
In 2016, new registrations of all electric and hybrid cars amounted to 433,847 across the whole of the EU, almost three per cent of the total registrations.
Volvo aims to sell one million electric cars before 2025, when it wants its production operations to become “climate neutral”.
Since Geely bought the brand from the American Ford in 2010, Volvo Cars has seen a dramatic turnaround. In 2016, its net profit almost doubled to over 600 million euros.
While the firm I HS Mark it believes the move puts the manufacturer“on track” to achieve its target of selling one million electric vehicles by 2025, Robert Coll in, an automotive specialist for the daily Aftonbladet, sees it as a PR trick.
“Chinese owners need more money to develop new models. That’s why one wants to get into the stock exchange,” Collin wrote on Aftonbladet’s website.
“If you can copy Tesla and ride on the electric car hype, then there’ll be many funds and investors who are interested. It raises the stock value.”
“This is too good to be true. You can notre adjust to electric and hybrid cars that fast ,” he
If you can copy Tesla and ride on the electric car hype, then there’ll be many funds and investors who are interested. It raises the stock value. Robert Collin, an automotive specialist for the daily Aftonbladet