Volvo Cars may go fully electric in India: Official

NEW DELHI: Swedish luxury carmaker Volvo Cars could go fully electric in India by around 2025, much ahead of its global target of becoming a full electric car company by 2030, a senior company official said on Tuesday.

The company, which will launch the electric version of its SUV C40 in the fourth quarter of 2023, will keep launching one electric vehicle every year in the country going forward.

Nick Connor, head of commercial operations, Rest of Asia Pacific region, Volvo Cars, said by virtue of being a niche player, the company can afford to become a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) only manufacturer much sooner than its competitors.

“I think we will accelerate. We can’t do it this year, maybe in 2025. We said we will be 50 per cent electric (globally) by then, we could say well in India, we’re going to be 100 per cent electric. We’ve already said in Australia, for example, that by 2026, we’re going to be 100 per cent electric,” he told reporters here in an interaction.

Connor, who was managing director of Volvo Cars Australia operations before his current role, was responding to a query on the plans for the company’s electrification journey in India.

“We’ve seen a much quicker acceleration towards battery electric vehicles than we ever thought (in Australia). It has taken us by surprise. I think that could well happen here (in India) because we’re not a mass manufacturer, we have the luxury of being able to differentiate ourselves from the market,” he asserted.

The challenge, however, is that the pure BEV luxury segment is very small at the moment and is not enough for the company to be viable in the marketplace, he said, adding, for some time the company would have to continue to sell petrol cars and mild hybrids.