Volvo’s announcement that it will become the first mainstream car maker to abandon internal combustion-only power has caught the motor industry on the hop.
From 2019 every new Volvo will have an electric motor, marking the historic end of cars that have only an internal combustion engine. By placing electrification at the core of its future business Volvo has made one of the most significant moves in the history of car manufacturing, and suggests other traditional manufacturers may well follow in embracing electrification as the future of motoring.
“This is about the customer,” said Håkan Samuelsson, President and Chief Executive of Volvo Cars. “People increasingly demand electrified cars, and we want to respond to our customers’ current and future needs. This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car. Volvo Cars has stated that it plans to have sold a total of 1m electrified cars by 2025. When we said it we meant it. This is how we are going to do it.”
Volvo’s future model range will encompass 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’s performance car arm. These five cars will be supplemented by a range of petrol and diesel plug-in hybrid and mild-hybrid 48-volt options on all models, aimed at being the broadest electrified offering of any car maker.
The announcement is part of a larger plan from Volvo to reduce the carbon emissions of both its vehicles as well as its operations, and it aims to achieve climate-neutral manufacturing by 2025. It follows an announcement last month that Volvo Cars will spin off the Polestar brand in into separate electrified global high-performance car company.
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