Volvo Vehicles took a step backward final month on its quest to achieve a key gross sales milestone for its full-electric automobiles.
EVs accounted for 3.5 p.c, simply 1,583 models, of automaker’s whole international quantity in July. That was a 26 p.c decline on its EV gross sales in July 2021.
The automaker’s general quantity was down 22 p.c to 44,664 in July.
Regardless of the setbacks, Volvo stays assured EVs will account for at the least 10 p.c of it is full-year quantity, which it predicts shall be flat.
Volvo, which needs to be an electric-only model by 2030, is bullish as a result of it “continues to see a marked enchancment within the stabilization of its provide chain, with July confirming the optimistic pattern in manufacturing seen in June,” the corporate mentioned in a press release.
The dip in EV gross sales is anticipated to proceed briefly earlier than making a optimistic flip.
“We’ll see a slight lower [in EV sales] within the third quarter, however we may have fairly a steep enhance within the fourth quarter,” Volvo’s appearing Chief Monetary Officer, Johan Ekdahl, advised Automotive Information Europe final month.
Ekdahl mentioned the continued decline is due to the time it takes for will increase in manufacturing to be mirrored in retail gross sales.
“Additionally, the elevated put in capability for EVs now we have added will assist us enhance the volumes step by step through the second half,” he mentioned.
Volvo has elevated the annual manufacturing capability for full-electric automobiles at its vegetation to 155,000, which is greater than 12,900 EVs a month.
Volvo offered 698,693 automobiles final yr with EVs accounting for 25,727, or 3.7 p.c.
Via July, Volvo is 101,675 models behind its gross sales degree from the identical interval final yr.
To erase that deficit and match it quantity from the final 5 months of 2021 Volvo might want to common about 72,400 gross sales a month.
To get to its EV objective, which might be greater than 69,000 models, it might want to promote on common greater than 9,200 full-electric fashions a month for the remainder of the yr.