Volvo has doubled down on electrification. It previously stated intentions of offering plug-in hybrid variants of every model, and it's been following through with the likes of the new S90 sedan and V90 wagon. It only plans to get more aggressive with electrification in the coming years, announcing this week that it hopes to sell up to one million electrified vehicles (all-electric and plug-in hybrid models), in total, by 2025. It will work toward that goal by creating two plug-in variants of every model and introducing its first fully electric car in 2019.
Volvo has already laid the groundwork for an aggressive rollout of hybrids and electrics, developing the Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) and Compact Modular Architecture (CMA), both of which can incorporate hybrid or all-electric powertrains. It plans to begin introducing at least one new chargeable vehicle each year, including an all-electric car in 2019.
To put this goal in perspective, total worldwide plug-in electric vehicle sales (battery powered electrics and plug-in hybrids) reached one million just last September, according to numbers tracked by HybridCars.com. The Nissan Leaf led the way with about 200,000 global sales and the Chevy Volt came in second with about half that number. Both vehicles launched in 2010.
The US accounted for the biggest chunk of those one million sales, but it's well behind its own "one million car" goal. President Barack Obama set that goal years earlier for 2015, but by the close of last year, the US hadn't even reached the halfway point, coming in around 400,000. In January of this year, US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz responded by pushing that goal back a few years, as reported by Reuters.
Plug-in sales have been growing steadily in countries around the world. Total sales jumped from 500,000 to one million in just over a year, and regions like Europe and China have been catching up with and surpassing US sales numbers.
Still, one million cars by a single company in less than a decade seems a big hill to climb.
"It is a deliberately ambitious target," says Hakan Samuelsson, Volvo president and chief executive. "It is going to be a challenge, but Volvo wants to be at the forefront of this shift to electrification."
Volvo surpassed 500,000 total global sales for the first time last year. It said in January that it expects electrified vehicles to account for at least 10 percent of its sales in the coming years.
Source: Volvo
