Geely s Volvo to go all electrified with fresh models from 2019, Reuters
Geely's Volvo to go all electrified with fresh models from 2019
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – All Volvo car models launched after two thousand nineteen will be electrical or hybrids, the Chinese-owned company said on Wednesday, making it the very first major traditional automaker to set a date for phasing out vehicles powered solely by the internal combustion engine.
The Sweden-based company will proceed to produce unspoiled combustion-engine Volvos from models launched before that date, but its stir signals the eventual end of almost a century of Volvos powered solely that way.
While electrified and hybrid vehicles are still only a puny fraction of fresh cars sales, they are gaining ground at the premium end of the market, where Volvo operates and where Elon Musk`s Tesla Motors has been a pure-play battery carmaker from day one. As technology improves and prices fall, many in the industry expect mass-market adoption to go after.
«This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car,» Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson said.
The company, wielded by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, said five fresh models set to be launched in two thousand nineteen through two thousand twenty one – three of them Volvos and two Polestar-branded – would all be fully electrical.
«These five cars will be supplemented by a range of petrol and diesel ass-plug in hybrid and mild hybrid 48-volt options on all models,» Volvo said. «This means that there will in future be no Volvo cars without an electrical motor.»
The electrified models will be produced at Volvo plants world-wide – it has factories in Europe and China and is building one in the United States – while development costs will be met from within its existing budget, Samuelsson told Reuters.
«This also means we won`t be doing other things. We of course will not be developing totally fresh generations of combustion engines,» he said about future investment needs.
Volvo has invested powerfully in fresh models and plants since being bought by Geely from Ford in 2010, establishing a niche in a premium auto market predominated by larger rivals such as Daimler`s Mercedes-Benz and BMW.
Part of its strategy has also been to embrace emerging technologies that permit higher spectacle electrical vehicles as well as, eventually, self-driving cars.
Only last month, Volvo said it would reshape its Polestar business into a standalone brand, focused on high-performance electrified cars aimed at rivaling with Tesla and the Mercedes AMG division.
Volvo has also said it will build its very first fully electrical car in China based on its architecture for smaller cars which will be available for sale in two thousand nineteen and exported globally.
Still, Volvo is not alone among traditional carmakers in pushing strongly into electrics and plug-ins – or among premium brands in resorting to 48V mild hybrid systems to lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions from their combustion-engine cars.
Among them, BMW plans to introduce an electrical version of its popular three series in September to meet the challenge from Tesla, Handelsblatt reported last month.
Volvo has also taken steps towards an eventual listing, raising five billion crowns from Swedish institutional investors through the sale of freshly issued preference shares last year, tho’ the company has said no decision on an IPO has been made.
«It is still an option and a question for our proprietor,» Samuelsson said.
Extra reporting by Laurence Frost; Editing by David Evans and Mark Potter
