Volvo seeks to cash in on the premium electric market
The Swedish-Chinese auto group announces it will sell only fully electric cars as of 2030
“There is no long-term future for cars with an internal combustion engine,” said Henrik Green, chief technology officer with Volvo.
50 per cent of its global sales should be fully-electric cars by 2025 and the other half hybrid models.
The company puts an end to combustion engines and will fundamentally change its products and sales. Volvo electric vehicles will come to you exclusively online. Their dealerships will remain open to service vehicles and to help customers make online orders. Volvo said it will invest heavily in online sales and “radically reduce” the complexity of its product offerings. Pricing will be transparent, it said.
Volvo will include wireless upgrades and fixes for its new electric models, as Tesla has been doing for a while.
Volvo sold 661,713 vehicles last year and hybrid and electric cars accounted for 30 per cent of sales in Europe, but only 17 per cent globally. Carmakers are racing to switch to zero-emission models as they face CO2 emissions targets in Europe and China, plus looming bans in some countries on fossil fuel vehicles. Some of the big names that announced the transition to EV are Ford Motor Co, Tata Motors, Bentley (owned by Germany’s Volkswagen).