Hakan Samuelsson, Volvo CEO, wants 25% of its sales to correspond to plug-in models by 2021. This ambitious goal is in line with the company’s aspirations for 2025, the year in which he foresees that half of the cars he sells to be electric and the other half hybrid.
“About a quarter of our sales worldwide this year should be Recharge,” said the executive. Remember that Recharge is the name used by Volvo to baptize its plug-in hybrids and pure electric, differentiating them from its gasoline, diesel, and mild-hybrid cars.
In 2020, around 17% of Volvos sold globally were plug-in, a considerable increase from the 6.5% achieved in 2019. However, the Swedish firm fell far short of its goal of reaching a 20% share. Despite everything, the numbers are promising, since during the second half of 2020 the Recharge range accounted for 19% of its sales.
To date, the primary market for Volvo’s plug-in vehicles is Europe, where they reached 36% of the brand’s total volume in the second half of 2020 (in the calculation of the whole year, the figure drops to 31%).
Samuelsson believes that by 2030 Volvo could sell exclusively 100% electric vehicles, the exact date that brands such as Bentley or MINI announced. Currently, the Scandinavian company has a single 100% electric model in its range: the XC40 Recharge P8 AWD.
However, next month a coupe version of that model will be presented (which will probably be called the C40 Recharge P8 AWD); Also, in the short term, there will also be two electric versions of the successful XC60 and XC90, as well as a representative SUV called XC100 that may only be offered with electric engines.