Volvo Cars going all electric

Every Volvo launched from 2019 will have an electric motor, Volvo Cars says.

The announcement represents one of the most significant moves by any car maker to embrace electrification.

“This is about the customer,” president and chief executive Hakan Samuelsson says. “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.”

Volvo Cars 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.

Full details of these models will be announced later.

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.

“This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car (for us),” Samuelsson says. “Volvo Cars has stated that it plans to have sold a total of one million electrified cars by 2025. When we said it we meant it. This is how we are going to do it.”

The announcement underlines Volvo Cars’ commitment to minimising its environmental impact and making the cities of the future cleaner.

Volvo Cars is focused on reducing the carbon emissions of both its products as well as its operations. It aims to have climate neutral manufacturing operations by 2025.

The decision also follows this month’s announcement that Volvo Cars will turn Polestar into a new, separately-branded, electrified global high-performance car company.

Volvo Cars design senior vice-president Thomas Ingenlath will lead Polestar as its chief executive officer.