Washington - Electricity
will power every new Volvo model starting in 2019, the Chinese-owned automaker making it the first major car manufacturer to pledge to
leave the traditional combustion engine behind. Volvo said it will launch
five fully electric vehicles between 2019 and 2021.
Three of them will be Volvo
models, and the other two will come from Polestar, Volvo's performance car arm.
Volvo said it will also introduce a host of new gas and diesel plug-in hybrids
down the line. The company has yet to provide details on any of the models.
"Volvo Cars has stated
that it plans to have sold a total of [1 million] electrified cars by 2025.
When we said it we meant it. This is how we are going to do it," said
Hakan Samuelsson, Volvo's president and chief executive. The company said it
will continue to manufacture its gas-fueled cars but will gradually phase them
out of production.
Some experts question how
quickly American consumers will adapt to the switch. "Buyers in the US say
they have interest in electric vehicles but largely buy sport utilities with
gasoline engines," said Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Autotrader.
"The major challenge for automakers in the future will be figuring out how
to generate consumer demand for the electric and hybrid vehicles required by
government regulations."
Krebs said that the Chinese
ownership of Volvo likely played a role in the announcement, considering
China's air pollution issues and the broader push for cleaner cars there and in
Europe. But it's less clear if commitments to build electric cars will lead to
commercial success in the United States.
Volvo claims less than 0.5
percent in US market share, according to Kelly Blue Book. About 130,000
electric and hybrid cars were sold in here from November 2015 to last November,
according to ChargePoint, a company that operates electric-vehicle charging
stations. That figure is dwarfed by total US car sales from 2016, which totaled
more than 17 million.
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Volvo's announcement comes
as major players in the auto industry are moving toward electric and hybrid
models. Last year, Volkswagen announced plans to release 30 new electric
vehicles by 2025. BMW recently said it hoped to boost the share of electric and
hybrids models to as much as 25 percent of sales by 2025. The luxury automaker
also reportedly plans to unveil an electric version of its popular 3-series
later this year.
Volvo's pledge arrived on
the heels of Tesla chief executive Elon Musk's announcement that the first
batch of Model 3's - Tesla's $35,000 entry-level electric car - will be
delivered at the end of the month. Volvo also said it's aiming
for its manufacturing operations to go carbon-neutral by 2025.