Volvo EV to go on sale by 2019

Volvo plans to launch a pure electric vehicle by 2019 as part of the brand’s just announced electrification strategy.

The size and form of the company’s first commercially available EV will be announced at another time. For now, the Geely-owned luxury marque is talking up its current and future plug-in hybrid models.

The company has already released a plug-in hybrid variant of its second-generation XC90 SUV. The XC90 T8 Twin Engine has a total of 295kW and 640Nm at its disposal, and features an all-wheel drive system consisting of an electric motor, and a turbocharged and supercharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine.

This drivetrain, with 40-or-so kilometre EV range, will be featured on other models based on the XC90’s Scalable Product Architecture (SPA), including the upcoming S90 sedan, as well as the next-gen 60-Series (S60, V60 and XC60) range.

According to Dr Peter Mertens, Volvo’s senior vice president for research development, “Our research has shown that people are driving our Twin Engine cars in electric mode around 50 percent of the time”.

Volvo is also developing a new front-wheel drive plug-in hybrid drivetrain, dubbed T5 Twin Engine (above), which will work with the company’s smaller Compact Module Architecture that will launch in 2017.

The Swedish brand believes that by 2020 electrified vehicles will account for up to 10 percent of the cars that it sells.