Volvo Cars announced yesterday that every new Volvo model it launches beginning in 2019 will have an electric motor. Jack Ewing in The New York Times notes that Volvo will continue to manufacture existing models with conventional engines after 2019 but depending on demand expects to completely phase out ICE-only cars by about 2024.
Volvo said it will introduce a portfolio of electrified cars across its model range, offering fully electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars, and mild hybrid cars. It will launch five electric cars between 2019 and 2021, three of which will be Volvo models and two of which will be models from Polestar, Volvo’s performance-car arm. The five cars will be supplemented by a range of petrol and diesel plug-in hybrid and mild hybrid 48-V options.*
“This is about the customer,” said Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive. “People increasingly demand electrified cars, and we want to respond to our customers’ current and future needs. You can now pick and choose whichever electrified Volvo you wish.”
He added, “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 1 million electrified cars by 2025. When we said it we meant it. This is how we are going to do it.”
Ewing in the Times notes that Volvo is owned by Geely Automobile holdings of China. He reports that Volvo’s electric vehicles will be produced in China initially but eventually also in Europe and at a new facility being built in South Carolina.
In an article in The Wall Street Journal headlined “Volvo Gives Tesla a Shock, As Others Plan Electric Push,” John D. Stoll and Tim Higgins say Volvo’s move represents a challenge to Tesla, as do electric-car initiatives from nearly all global automakers. They report that Tesla’s share price fell more than 7% yesterday. (They also note that investors were also reacting to supply issues relating to battery packs for the Model S and Model X.)
They quote Barclays auto analyst Brian Johnson calling the Volvo announcement “…the hard-reality case that Tesla will face intense competition by next decade from legacy [automakers] expanding their electric options.”
*Of course, it should be noted, since the days of the hand crank start every ICE vehicle has had an electric motor.
