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All Volvo car models launched after 2019 will be electric or hybrids, the Chinese-owned company said on Wednesday, making it the first major traditional automaker to set a date for phasing out vehicles powered solely by the internal combustion engine.
The Sweden-based company will continue to produce pure combustion-engine Volvos from models launched before that date, but its move signals the eventual end of nearly a century of Volvos powered solely that way.
While electric and hybrid vehicles are still only a small fraction of new 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 follow.
"This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car," Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson said.
The company, owned by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, said five new models set to be launched in 2019 through 2021 - three of them Volvos and two Polestar-branded - would all be fully electric.
"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," Volvo said. "This means that there will in future be no Volvo cars without an electric motor."
Source: Reuters
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bootsy on Thursday July 06 2017, @10:07AM
The Tesla thing is interesting.
The original Tesla Roadster was built in the Lotus factory in Hethnel in the UK.
Geely have just bought Proton and therefore now own Lotus.
That means Lotus will get all that tech but they already know how to make the original Tesla Roadster (they supplied the glider) and they had a Electric Evora prototype set up.
We will see an electric Elise again but this time Lotus branded and with a Volvo electric engine at a cheaper price than the Roadster?