The move is seen by some as a reaction to the impending 2020 emissions regulations that force European manufacturers to produce cars that produce tailpipe emission of 95g of CO2/km across the entire fleet, or face stiff financial penalties.
However, others report that the move represents a clear strategy to expand Volvo’s electrification strategy to bring it more in line with the likes of Tesla as well as reacting to the rapid growth of the Asian market. By comparison, last year nearly 265,000 pure-electric vehicles were sold in China versus 110,000 in Europe.
Volvo will introduce a portfolio of electrified cars across its model range, embracing 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 Cars’ performance car arm.
The five cars will be supplemented by a range of petrol and diesel plug-in hybrid and mild hybrid 48V options on all models, representing one of the broadest electrified car offerings by any carmaker.
Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive, said: “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.”
Volvo Cars has been active in its efforts to reduce carbon emissions and aims to have climate neutral manufacturing operations by 2025.
