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posted by martyb on Thursday July 06 2017, @12:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the self-serving-plug? dept.

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


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 06 2017, @01:04PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 06 2017, @01:04PM (#535695) Journal
    That could be argued as a move into a new sector, "cyber-banking" which is why I didn't count PayPal.