Volvo preps second EV for launch

Volvo Cars will reveal the second member of its family of battery-driven vehicles and share details of its electrification strategy in early March.

The Swedish automaker said in 2019 it would debut a new full-electric car each year until 2025, which is when it wants half of its global sales to come from battery-powered models.

Volvo has released few details on the model, which will be shown March 2, but has revealed it will share the compact module architecture (CMA) with its first EV, the XC40 Recharge crossover.

When asked about the new model, Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson told Automotive News Europe that it would have a "more streamlined body" than the XC40 Recharge.

"We will keep you a bit in the dark until we show the car, but I promise you it will be a very good-looking car," he added.

Samuelsson said the new model would not be a successor to the recently discontinued V40 compact hatchback, which competed in a price segment below where Volvo wants to be.

"For Volvo to be profitable we need to focus on higher price, more premium car segments," he said.

Volvo's global head of commercial operations, Lex Kerssemakers, said in early 2019 that the successor to the V40 would be higher-riding because the extra height would help accommodate batteries needed to create a full-electric version.

When Volvo outlined is compact car strategy in 2016 it showed two CMA-based concepts: the 40.1, which was a near match to what would become the XC40, and the 40.2, a sleek, high-riding sedan.

Samuelsson said earlier this month he envisions Volvo becoming an electric-only brand within the next 10 years.

This year the automaker wants 20 percent of its global sales to be electrified models. The majority of them will be plug-in hybrids because it is still completing the launch the XC40 Recharge.