Volvo pledges to make all its cars electric from 2019

While all of its new vehicle lines will be “electrified” starting in 2019, for a few years Volvo will continue production of existing models that don’t have electric motors.

Håkan Samuelsson, Volvo’s president and chief executive, said: “This is about the customer”.

Volvo will begin producing electric motors on all its cars from 2019, becoming the first major automaker to forgo traditional engines that rely exclusively on internal combustion.

Volvo plans to launch five new, fully electric cars from 2019 to 2021.

New hybrids will be a mix of petrol and diesel twin-engine plug-ins as well as 48-volt mild hybrid options.

The company says it will continue to make pure combustion engine cars launched prior to 2019.

The brand also announced plans for climate-neutral manufacturing operations by 2025and a sales target of one million electrified cars by 2025.

“This also means we won’t be doing other things”.

The electric models will be produced at Volvo plants worldwide – it has factories in Europe and China and is building one in the United States – while development costs will be met from within its existing budget, Samuelsson told Reuters.

The decision also follows this month’s announcement that Volvo Cars will turn Polestar into a new separately-branded electrified global high performance vehicle company.

The press release by Volvo said that the move to go with the electric engine in the future is part of company’s commitment to keeping the environment clean by reducing Co2 emission.

Volvo Car Group is owned by Chinese Geely Holding.

Electric vehicles are popular on the market these days, but not every manufacturer provides an extensive range of options.

The company fits its twin-engine plug-in hybrid unit to a number of models, including the XC90 and V60.

Samuelsson added: “This is about the customer”. Nearly 265,000 pure electric cars were sold in China past year, versus 110,000 across Europe. Volvo Cars head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden.