The growing popularity of EVs in the market is no secret now. The future is pretty much visible as the market is edging closer to attaining the electric mobility majority. Thus a host of carmakers is changing and restructuring their vision. Volvo India has always been a customer-centric brand with a core emphasis on the environment. Thus, given the current trend of EVs and the road ahead, there are suggestions that Volvo could go all-electric as early as 2025. This is much sooner than Volvo’s global target of becoming a fully electric car company by 2030. Not just, Volvo, but a host of carmakers too, has announced their roadmap, which is fully electric.
As part of this vision, Volvo India will soon launch the electric version of its SUV C40. This will happen sometime in the fourth quarter of 2023. Then going forward, the company will keep launching one electric vehicle every year for the Indian market.
As per Volvo, they will attain 50 per cent electric globally by 2023. And by then, for the Indian market, they could be 100 per cent electric at the same time. to achieve India, we’re going to be 100 per cent electric. Similarly, for the Australian market, they are targeting to attain 100 per cent by 2026.
As it stands, the brand is accelerating at a much faster pace towards battery electric vehicles in Australia, as said by Volvo. And this is a surprise for Volvo as well. Thus, they are expecting the Indian market too to follow a similar trend to that of Australia. Being not a mass manufacturer, Volvo has all the tools and requirements to differentiate itself from the market.
But, there are some challenges to overcome. First is that the pure BEV luxury segment is very much limited at the moment. Thus there is not enough for the company to become viable in the marketplace. Thus for the time being Volvo will have to continue to sell petrol cars and mild hybrids. But, then when the market matures and develops, they will accelerate the move to BEV.
Volvo Cars’ current India range has a lot of options to choose from. This includes XC40 Recharge, SUVs XC90, XC60, XC40 and S90.
Also Read: Volvo plans to build electric cars in India?