Swedish luxury carmaker Volvo Cars is set to launch a locally assembled EV in the Indian market later this year. And it is ready to go fully electric in India starting in 2025. The present Volvo Cars India sales in India are XC40 Recharge priced at Rs 56.90 lakhs has been robust demand for electric cars from customers.
The global target of Volvo Cars is to become fully electric by 2030 as per a senior company official on Tuesday. The company is willing to launch the electric version of SUV C40 in the 4th quarter of 2023 and has decided to launch a new electric car year, thus making it fully electric by 2025.
Head of Volvo Card in Asia Pacific, Nick Connor said that “the company can afford to become a BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) only manufacturer much sooner than its competitors. “I think we will accelerate. We can do this by 2025, and we will be 50% electric (globally) by then, we could say well in India, we are going to be 100% electric.
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 have seen a much quicker acceleration towards battery electric vehicles than we ever thought. It has taken us by surprise. I think that could well happen here (in India) because we’re not mass manufacturing.
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 added, “I think it is very important for us that we produce as many cars here locally as we can to meet local demand. He also said that ” We haven’t set hard and fast targets for India or indeed any other market because of production uncertainities. But if the global percentage is 11%, then we want stronger sales in India.
Last year, Volvo Cars sold around 1800 units in India and expects to record its best sales, bettering the previous highest of 2,600 units sold in 2018.