Volvo wants to sell in the year 2025 half of all vehicles with a purely electric drive. Starting in 2019, a mild hybrid, a plug-in hybrid or a purely battery-electric vehicle is to be offered in each new series presented.
April 25, 2018, 8:48 am,
Andreas Donath
For Volvo, the future is China and the electric car.
(Image: Volvo)
The Swedish automaker has so far focused on hybrid cars when it comes to alternative drives – both as a plug-in hybrid or at least as a mild hybrid. In a so-called mild hybrid, however, the electric motor only acts as a support, whereas only a small battery is used in the plug-in hybrid. But the Mix should change now mainly because of the Chinese market, Volvo has decided.
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The Chinese government wants 2025 to sell about 20 percent of all cars sold with alternative drives. That would be about seven million vehicles, says Volvo and wants to profit from it.
“Last year, we committed ourselves to electrification to prepare for the era of classic combustion engines,” said Håkan Samuelsson, Volvo’s CEO. “China’s electric future is also the electric future of Volvo Cars.”
The Volvo S90 and the Volvo S90L are already being produced in China with the T8 Twin Engine, and production of the Volvo XC60 T8 Twin Engine is starting soon, with the result that plug-in hybrid or electric cars will soon be built in all three of Volvo’s Chinese plants.
About the Volvos, which are driven purely electrically, is not much known. First of all, Volvo wants score points with hybrid vehicles and has with the Polestar 1 presented a 2 + 2-seater Grand Tourer Coupé with a system output of 441 kW (600 hp) and 1,000 Nm of torque. The fact that a hybrid vehicle can cover a distance of 150 km (NEDC) with its 34 kWh battery in a purely electric manner is unprecedented. The two electric motors (each 80 kW) sit on the rear axle. There is also a two-liter inline four-cylinder. Volvo recently announced that Polestar cars should be rented first and foremost, which is not surprising given its price range of € 130,000 to € 150,000.