From 2024 diesel might be dead to Volvo, with the Swedish automaker planning to provide its final ever automobile powered by a compression ignition engine early next yr.
When the ultimate diesel Volvo trundles down the road, the Swedish marque might be one in all the primary legacy brands to make the transition away from diesel.
Today’s announcement at Climate Week NYC is just not unexpected, as Volvo has previously stated it’s planning to be a totally electric automaker by 2030, and is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2040.
In Australia, the corporate has an excellent more aggressive goal: it’s planning to be EV only by 2026.
Locally Volvo dropped diesels from its range in 2022, and the UK followed suit this yr. In these two markets, in addition to the US and China, Volvo sells only plug-in hybrid and mild hybrid cars with petrol engines, or pure electric vehicles.
Volvo says that as recently as 2019, diesel-powered cars represented a majority of its sales in Europe. In accordance with Reuters, in 2022 diesel vehicles accounted for just 8.9 per cent of Volvo’s European volume.
The news wire also understands that 33 per cent of Volvo’s sales in August were EV or plug-in hybrid.
This reflects a wider trend across the Continent with diesel cars plummeting in popularity within the wake of the Volkswagen Group’s Dieselgate emissions cheating scandal.
As we reportedly recently, pure electric vehicles overtook diesel for the primary time across Europe in July 2023. In that month, diesel vehicles accounted for just 13.4 per cent of sales, down from over 50 per cent in 2015.
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Volvo EX30
Volvo’s transition away from petrol and diesel engines began in 2019, when it merged its internal combustion engine development and production operations with those of parent Geely to create Aurobay. Volvo sold its stake in Aurobay in November 2022.
In a prepared statement, the corporate said, “We’re now not spending a single krona of our R&D budget on developing latest internal combustion engines”.
Recently Volvo launched its first two electric only models, the EX90 and EX30 crossovers. It also sells electric versions of the XC40 and C40 crossovers.
This Article First Appeared At www.carexpert.com.au
