All Volvo models will gain electrification from 2019

Volvo Cars has announced that every new model it launches from 2019 will feature an electrified powertrain, with five fully electric cars arriving between 2019 and 2021.

The announcement is a significant move by the company to embrace electrification and highlights how, over a century after the invention of the internal combustion engine, electrification is paving the way for a new chapter in automotive history.

President and chief executive of Volvo Cars, Håkan Samuelsson, said: “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, plug-in hybrid, and mild-hybrid models.

The company also will launch five fully electric cars between 2019 and 2021, three of which will be Volvo models, with an additional two high-performance electrified cars from Polestar, Volvo Cars’ performance car arm. Details of these models will be announced at a later date.

These five cars will be supplemented by a range of both petrol and diesel plug-in hybrid as well as mild-hybrid 48-volt options on all models, and will represent one of the broadest electrified car offerings from a car maker.

This means that there will in future be no Volvo cars without an electric motor, as pure ICE cars are gradually phased out and replaced by ICE cars that are enhanced with electrified options.

Samuelsson continued: “This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car. 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: the car maker is focused on reducing the carbon emissions of both its products as well as its operations, and 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. Thomas Ingenlath, senior vice president of design at Volvo Cars, will lead Polestar as chief executive officer.