Volvo Automobiles is boosting manufacturing of full-electric vehicles at its plant in Ghent, Belgium.
The corporate is including output of a second battery-powered automotive on the manufacturing unit along with the full-electric XC40 Recharge compact SUV.
The new EV will use the identical structure because the XC40 Recharge. Volvo will present extra particulars on the mannequin, which is predicted to be called the C40, on March 2.
Volvo plans to launch a brand new full-electric automotive yearly till 2025, when it expects that half of its international gross sales shall be battery-powered fashions.
Final 12 months the automaker produced 194,890 vehicles in Ghent, together with 6,604 full-electric XC40 Recharge fashions and 36,905 plug-in hybrid variations of the SUV, in accordance with firm figures.
The V60 midsize station wagon, powered by combustion engines, accounted for the remainder of the manufacturing.
Volvo estimates output of full-electric vehicles at Ghent will triple from 2020 to 2022, at which era full-electric vehicles will account for about 60 % of the plant’s complete manufacturing capability.
“As we proceed to impress our lineup and increase our electrical manufacturing capability, Ghent is an actual trailblazer for our international manufacturing community,” Javier Varela, Volvo’s head of worldwide industrial operations and high quality, said in a release.
Final 12 months Volvo greater than doubled gross sales of its Recharge line of full-electric autos and plug-in hybrids to 115,436, up from 45,933 in 2019, in accordance with firm figures. The XC40 Recharge accounted for 4,659 of these gross sales and plug-in hybrid variations of fashions together with its international top-seller, the XC60, for the remaining.
Because of this, the Recharge household accounted for 17 % of Volvo’s international quantity, up from 6.5 % share in 2019.
That, nonetheless, was under the 20 % share focused for 2020 by CEO Hakan Samuelsson, who envisions Volvo being an electric-only brand by 2030.
By market area, Recharge fashions represented 6 % of Volvo’s gross sales in Asia Pacific, 9 % within the Americas and 29 % of its quantity in its European area that features Africa and the Center East, the corporate mentioned.
The sturdy demand for its electrified vehicles in Europe put Volvo in place to financially profit from serving to its former proprietor Ford Motor to keep away from a fantastic from the European Union for lacking its 2020 CO2 emissions discount goal. Ford asked to pool its CO2 output with Volvo. Ford owned Volvo from 1999 till it bought the automaker to China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding in 2010.
Ford declined to say how a lot it paid Volvo to affix its pool.
Volvo additionally declined to remark, solely saying in a launch that the “ensuing income from the deal shall be reinvested in new inexperienced expertise initiatives.”
Volvo and its subsidiary, Polestar, had been on monitor to be properly under their mandated EU CO2 goal of 110.3 grams per km for 2020 with a determine of 103.1 g/km after eight months, in accordance with knowledge from market researcher JATO Dynamics.
That was a giant enchancment on the place Volvo was in 2017, when its fleet CO2 was 130 g/km, JATO’s figures present.
Volvo aggressive electrification plans embody constructing the battery-driven model of its next-generation XC90 flagship SUV at its U.S. manufacturing unit beginning subsequent 12 months.
As well as, the automaker will begin full production of electric motors at its powertrain plant in Skovde, Sweden, by the mid-2020s. Volvo will make investments 700 million crowns ($83 million) on the plant so as to add e-motor output.