Volvo Says It Will Only Make Electric and Hybrid Cars Starting in 2019 (npr.org)

Volvo has announced that starting in 2019, all of the new models it produces will be electric or hybrid. From a report: "This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car," said Hakan Samuelsson, Volvo president and chief executive, in a statement. "Volvo Cars has stated that it plans to have sold a total of 1 million electrified cars by 2025. When we said it we meant it. This is how we are going to do it." The move makes Volvo the first traditional automaker to set a date to phase out cars powered only by internal combustion engines, Reuters reports. The company said it will launch five fully electric cars between 2019 and 2021. Three of these will be Volvos, and two will be sold under the company's Polestar "electrified performance brand."

Comments

Meanwhile...

[Rei]

Somewhere in the world right now, Jeremy Clarkson is banging his head against a dashboard.

Re:Meanwhile...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeremy Clarkson liked the BMW i8 hybrid. I don't think he has a problem with hybrids so long as they are good hybrids;

"What we have here, then, is a car that runs silently on electric power when you just have to go to work. But that becomes a Porsche 911 when you are in the mood. This is a sport hybrid, but unlike other sport hybrids — the McLaren P1 and the Porsche 918 Spyder, for example — it does not cost eleven hundred and seventy thirteen million pounds."
[...]
Toyota had just about convinced the world that if you wanted a hybrid you could pretty much kiss goodbye to the concept of fun. But with the i8 BMW has shown this ain’t necessarily so.

I still believe that with hybrids we are going down the wrong road. But with an i8, going in completely the wrong direction is at least wonderfully enjoyable.

Re:Meanwhile...

[Rei]

Or, you could, you know, actually present facts, such as a summary of the lower court rulings and the full appeals ruling. The judge did not find that "Tesla defamed TopGear" and was liable for "£100,000 damages". In Europe, if you lose a court case, you generally bear all of the cost of proceedings. The short of the case: The lower court judge argued (and the appeals judge concurred) that viewers should recognize that the show is an entertainment program and that reasonable buyers should understand that range is relative to how you drive a vehicle; that Tesla couldn't show that the statements were "calculated" to cause damage; and that Tesla failed to put forth a compelling case that they lost sales because of the program.

just another Saab Story

[turkeydance]

sorry

As a strategy, it may not be bad...

[frank_adrian314159]

Volvo now has every incentive to make quicker progress on hybrid engines and electric motors than their otherwise ICE-involved competitors might. Of course, it may just be their board's latest brain fart as interpreted by their CEO, too. Time will tell. All I know is that it's a gutsy move.

Re:As a strategy, it may not be bad...

[Rei]

It's also a gutsy move not to. Emissions and mileage regulations are tightening. There's a crackdown against emissions cheaters. Consumers meanwhile expect better and better performance. Electric motors are really the only practical way to deliver high performance in the current regulatory regime - whether you're talking pure electric or hybrid. Electric motors actually become more efficient as they become more powerful, not less (upping the peak power requires lower resistance wiring, which wastes less energy when the vehicle is cruising)

There's also a serious danger for any automaker being behind the curve on electrification. Tesla's Model 3 production lines are finally going online for what will initially be several hundred thousand vehicles per year, with long-term plans aimed many times larger. Tesla could of course be completely wrong and the market could disappoint in the long-run. But for other manufacturers, the cost of letting your ability to mass-produce reliable electric vehicles stagnate would be a death knell if Tesla is right. Volvo can always go back to making pure gasoline cars if they're wrong, but they can't just suddenly jump to making hundreds of thousands or millions of EVs per year if they haven't built up to that point.

Mild Hybrids

[drinkypoo]

All automakers are going to more or less follow suit soon enough. The benefits of a mild hybrid system far outweigh the essentially nonexistent drawbacks, and if you actually convert the whole car to 48V, then there really are no drawbacks.

Re:Ha!

[shmlco]

"... and now they won't even make the type of car that I would consider buying."

Sounds like the bus and a lot of walking is in your future.

Re:not market forces - govt regulation...

[shmlco]

Says someone who obviously wasn't around CA in the '70s. Thing is, "consumers" also want air they can breath, and water they can drink....

Sulfates and other pollutants are directly related to acidification of rainfall and as such our streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater; directly contribute to asthma and lung cancer and other health related issues; and, of course, to our carbon footprint.

And, like coal, if an older technology can no longer do its job from both an economic and environmental standpoint, then, like horses and steam engines, it's time for it to go.

Re:Vulvas like battery power

[shmlco]

Regarding Subaru: "In an interview published Sunday by Bloomberg, the company's CEO Yasuyuki Yoshinaga said that it plans to make all-electric versions of existing models rather than develop new vehicle lines for the new powertrains."

Tesla is selling the S and X and soon the M3. Fischer is pushing forward. Chevrolet is selling the Volt and Bolt. Toyota, of course, is selling the Prius Prime PHEV plus several other hybrids. Honda has the Clarity plus hybrids. Nissan Leaf. BMW is selling the i3 and teasing the i8. Kia Soul EV and Niro. Fiat 500e. Hyundai Ioniq.

Tell your gf that they're coming, like it or not.

Electric vehicles cheaper than fossil fuels

[WillAffleckUW]

All automobile manufacturers project the cost to buy a fossil fuel vehicle will be more than for an all electric vehicle starting next model year.

(yes, I invest in automobile firms, sorry if you never read the internal news)

Adapt. Nobody cares for your failed fossil fuel religion.

Re: Ha!

[shmlco]

You realize that there are Prius autos out there that are hitting 500,000 miles on their original batteries, yes? Or that electrics have about 2,000 fewer parts to wear out and break as opposed to ICEs?

And I just saw an article recently that ran down the top 20 most common repairs needed by modern ICE-powered cars... and none of them apply to EVs.

If you're wanting reliability, a simple electric motor beats an ICE hands down, and twice on Sunday.

Re:Ha!

[drinkypoo]

I wasn't going to buy one of those pieces of crap, anyway, and now they won't even make the type of car that I would consider buying.

That's exactly why this is the right move for the kind of customer that Volvo is pursuing. Whether pursuing that kind of customer is a good idea or not is another issue. As far as I can tell, it's the middle class, and the middle class is shrinking. At least they finally figured out that they have to make their cars tall if they want to sell them.

Volvo is already selling a highly fancy-pants twincharged (super+turbo) engine with all the bells and whistles. They're fairly well-committed to taking the high-tech solution. But what do you have against hybrids? The Germans and the Koreans alike are now using it to make cars better first, and more efficient second. They still achieve significant efficiency gains, while also improving performance — sometimes by quite a lot, because the electric motor ideally complements the gasoline engine. The electric motor makes peak torque near stall, while the gasoline engine makes it much higher, especially if it is not turbocharged.

But let's say you have a tiny little engine, a big but cheap turbo, and a 48 volt lithium ion mild hybrid system. Your electric motor fills in down low to make up for the lack of torque in the engine, and for the long spool-up time on the turbocharger. The turbo comes on in the mid-range and continues to let the itty bitty engine make more power well into the high rpm/load range, as the electric motor fades away. How can that be a bad thing? The only reason you might [reasonably] complain is if it's mated to a CVT, but you can as easily use a DCT and get almost the same efficiency. Because you're doing torque fill with the electric motor, the clutches in the DCT will last essentially forever.

Automakers have to achieve mileage improvements both in specific segments, and also across their range. For the big guys who make vehicles in multiple segments, there's low-hanging fruit that they're already picking in weight reduction, Ford with Aluminum and GM with ultra high-strength steel. Dodge doesn't sell anywhere near as many pickups, and I'm not sure if FCA even has a plan there. For someone like Volvo, who only sells cars and unrelated heavy trucks into the USA, they have to literally get those mileage improvements across their range — that is, in all of their vehicles.

Re:Need for speed?

[shmlco]

2017 Chevy Corvette 0-60 in 3.6 sec. 1/4 mile in 12.3 sec. 296 mile range.

2017 Tesla model S (sedan): 0-60 in 2.28 sec. 1/4 mile in 10.5 sec. 310 mile range.

Re:Ha!

[Rei]

Damn that electric card! ;)

Meanwhile, in the real world, multiple studies have reached the same conclusion: on the US's current grid, a complete switchover to EVs:

  * PM increases.
  * You would see more SOx, except that grid operators are largely capped; in order to sell more power, they have to improve their sulfur scrubbing (and it's well worth them in order to sell more power). In short there's little change.
  * NOx is relatively unchanged.
  * VOCs go way down
  * CO goes way down
  * CO2 gets about a 30% reduction

Also:

  * All regions of the US grid have enough generation capacity for a complete EV switchover with no new construciton needed except for the hydro-rich Pacific Northwest.
  * Local grids however need to be upgraded in many places.
  * That said, nobody is talking about a magic fairy coming along and converting all cars to EVs overnight; even the most rushed production pace would be far slower than the pace of grid maintenance and upgrades.

Lastly:

  * Gasoline is getting dirtier, as producers increasingly switch to deeper reservoirs, bitumen, tight oil, deepwater crude, etc, which involve more emissions in their production.
  * Electricity is getting cleaner, and surprisingly fast, with most new power being gas, wind, and increasingly, solar.
  * EVs continue to get cleaner over time as the grid does.

On to your other claims:

And the batteries are made of rare materials

No, they don't. The two rarest elements involved in lithium ion batteries are lithium and cobalt, which rank only after nitrogen in Earth's crustal abundance. Their raw material prices of 1-2 dozen dollars per kilogram give a good clue that they're not exactly hard to come by. Li-ion batteries don't even use all that much lithium anyway. By contrast, while gasoline cars don't use a tremendous amount of it, they require platinum or other metals in their catalytic converters and some times spark plugs, which most definitely are rare.

that require strip-mining to retrieve

Most cobalt is not directly mined. It's a byproduct of mining the copper used for things like powering the computer you're typing on. Lithium is rarely "strip mined"; it's one of the most environmentally-friendly means of production you can get. It involves pumping brine from under the surface of a playa and drying it in the sun on the surface. Most such playas flood annually, wiping out the evidence that the mine ever was there.

(Note that while all li-ion batteries use lithium, not all use cobalt. Some for example, use iron phosphate, spinels, etc.)

Re:Ha!

[Rei]

Oh, I forgot to mention: grid emissions are largely emitted in less densely populated areas, at altitude. Vehicle emissions are largely emitted at street level, predominantly in more densely populated areas. This amplifies the health effects significantly, particularly for short-lived pollutants.

Re:Ha!

[hyades1]

I hope you realize your parents aren't going to drive you around forever.

Re: Ha!

[Stealthey]

My car is 11 years old and there are no design constraints in it preventing me from hoping it will last five more years without major expenses. You can't say that about a hybrid or an electric. It WILL need an expensive new battery long before it is 16 years old.

Hmm,
How many times did you have to do an Oil/Filter/Spark Plug etc. Change. How much GAS cost for 100KMs vs. Cost of Electricity to charge it for 100KM. So on and so forth.

I don't foresee the batteries as a long term issue. What will eventually happen, once there are enough EVs on the road, you will see batteries becomming a standard and battery stations will start cropping up.
Essentially Gas stations will start carrying these standard batteries, you will pay monthly/yearly fee for the service. Once you are running low, you pull into these battery stations and someone or robotically, your battery will be replaced with a fully charged one. You will be in/out in less than 5 minutes. Then you will never have to worry about old battery, cause the cost of maintaining the battery will be handled by the battery charging station. Obviously they will work out a metric for the cost of the doing that, add 1000% profit and then pass over the bill to you. Even at that price, you will be happy cause it is still cheaper than GAS. Even more competition will drive the cost down.

Needless to say, Electricity manufacturers will be the new overlords.

The roar of the internal combustion engine.

[spoot]

I remember when I was a kid, growing up in Miami. We would go to the unlimited hydroplane races at Marine Stadium on Key Biscayne. Back then, all the Unlimited Hydro's were powered by Rolls Royce Merlin engines. Yea, surplus engines from P-51's and Spitfires. There was/is nothing like the sound of that Merlin engine screaming by. If you've never heard it, I can't explain it. Fast forward a few years into the future, and I attend the Hydro races in Detroit, and all the unlimited Hydro's are using jet engines. The go by and it's just a "whoosh" sound. All the fun and excitement were gone. Last Hydro race I ever went to. Or take a dragster or funny car burning Nitro, that sound, that smell. Yea, the electrics and jet powered race vehicles may be faster, but they're just boring. This may sound silly, but soon there will be a generation that never knows the sound of a tightly tuned internal combustion engine on a Formula 1 or even a Ducati. We won't even get behind the wheel, we will just whoosh along in boring electric vehicles. I think Jeff Beck said about self driving cars, who the hell would want that. What's the fun in that. Hell, I even miss the sound of a raspy old Bultaco, Husky or CZ 2-Stroke. I'll go back to yelling at the clouds now.

Re:The roar of the internal combustion engine.

[ledow]

Boring electric vehicles that have almost no "top speed" and can accelerate faster than just about anything on the planet.

I have always suspected, and it's now being borne out, that being "into" fast cars was nothing to do with performance, or handling, or engineering. It was about making loud noises and getting dirty and feeling manly.

Now that every car on the road can do 130mph, nobody cares. Now that electric cars/bikes out-accelerate everything else, nobody cares. Now that even Harley Davidson have electric models, nobody cares.

It was never about the engineering. It was about making noise, and being seen to make noise.

Formula One is as boring as fuck, since they keep making silly rules to dial everything back to "safety". Noisy cars are boring as fuck, since every decent car is whisper silent and can out-perform all the others. Even convertibles - why on EARTH is it at all fashionable to show the world that you can't afford air-con and would rather have every bug smacking you in the face?

Fact is, the ICE's days are numbered. Environmental factors, cost, wear on parts, etc. Almost every car on the road is technically better than a Formula One car from my parent's generation. You can't really speed anyway because of the cameras, and even when you do, they are designed so that it doesn't actually feel fast at all (a dangerous combination).

How about we get over "WOAH! CARS ARE BIG AND LOUD AND NOISY AND LOOK AT ME COMING!", finally? Most kids these days have zero interest in cars, for the same reason they have zero interest in computers - the point are which they were "amazing" was in the previous generation. Now everything's a Formula 1, and you can't do anything with it.

My technician bought himself a brand new car last year. Was telling me all about specs, sporty wheels, such-and-such-a-limited-edition, etc. Spent a fortune. Turned out that, when we checked the specs, the car I had bought a few years before outperformed every spec he gave but didn't look like a terrible boy-racer tricked-out car from the 80's, could carry 5 and a ton of luggage, and was whisper-quiet internally.

Cars are no longer the must-have teenager item. They have Uber if they want to go somewhere. As such, those still clinging to that idea are clinging to a childhood, not to a fascination with engineering. We've been using sub-standard engines for decades because nobody "wanted" an electric car. Now that they do, they win on almost every metric.

P.S. I don't like electric cars, but because of practicality - purchase cost, replacement cost, range. My father was also a motor engineer for decades, built all his own tricked-out cars, did all kinds of stuff in his youth, massive garage dedicated to the hobby, etc. He bought a second-hand Volvo last year.

Cars are just utility vehicles now. And so the sporty ones make no sense. And a battery-powered Harley will beat just about anything away at the lights. Fact is, nobody really cares any more except the guy who bought the Harley because of the Harley name.

Re:The roar of the internal combustion engine.

[bluegutang]

self driving cars, who the hell would want that

A commuter driving the same route to work every day. Or a parent dropping off the kids and doing shopping.

In other words, the vast majority of drivers.

Re:The roar of the internal combustion engine.

[Shotgun]

It was never about the engineering. It was about making noise, and being seen to make noise.

You hit around it, but you really missed the point. It was about more than the noise. It was about engineering. But mostly, it was about challenging your mates and building a better "it" than they build. It was about making you car do more than what the other guys could get their cars to do. It was about building a computer that would play the latest games smoother than the other guys in your group. The noise was just a side-effect that showcased your accomplishment. The liquid cooling setup and LEDs just showcased your accomplishment.

Those things used to be hard to come by. That's why your father had a shop dedicated to it. Now, the run of the mill electric car or PC runs circles around what the most knowledgeable hand tuning could do a generation ago. But, the desire to "outperform" the competition is a part of the human experience. I look forward to what the next great challenge will be.

Re:The roar of the internal combustion engine.

[goose-incarnated]

I remember when I was a kid, growing up in Miami. We would go to the unlimited hydroplane races at Marine Stadium on Key Biscayne. Back then, all the Unlimited Hydro's were powered by Rolls Royce Merlin engines. Yea, surplus engines from P-51's and Spitfires. There was/is nothing like the sound of that Merlin engine screaming by. If you've never heard it, I can't explain it. Fast forward a few years into the future, and I attend the Hydro races in Detroit, and all the unlimited Hydro's are using jet engines. The go by and it's just a "whoosh" sound. All the fun and excitement were gone. Last Hydro race I ever went to. Or take a dragster or funny car burning Nitro, that sound, that smell. Yea, the electrics and jet powered race vehicles may be faster, but they're just boring. This may sound silly, but soon there will be a generation that never knows the sound of a tightly tuned internal combustion engine on a Formula 1 or even a Ducati. We won't even get behind the wheel, we will just whoosh along in boring electric vehicles. I think Jeff Beck said about self driving cars, who the hell would want that. What's the fun in that. Hell, I even miss the sound of a raspy old Bultaco, Husky or CZ 2-Stroke. I'll go back to yelling at the clouds now.

I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. Despite all the religion-fuelled comments here, the infernal combustion engine isn't going anywhere soon. It's way too cheap and plentiful.

Re:Need for speed?

[Narcocide]

That number is also 0 for the Corvette. What's your point again here?

Re: What market segments?

[Anonymous Coward]

Volvo CE and Volvo Cars are two different companies. Volvo Cars is a Chinese subsidiary and Volvo CE is a Swedish company traded on a public stock market.

Re:Ha!

[Anonymous Coward]

You could also note that

1. Internal Combustion Engines in cars get about 20% thermal efficiency, while the efficiency of thermal steam turbines are gt 60%
2. Coal plants are getting phased out for gas and solar, so their argument is diminishing even as we quibble

All of this BS being thrown by the incumbent US car makers is solely to support their sunk costs in manufacturing equipment for ICE's, and has nothing to do with the value of what people are purchasing

Re: Vulvas like battery power

[b0bby]

I'm planning to buy a Leaf this fall, so I'm in favor of electric cars and I do think that they are the future. However, at this point, very few of them are profitable for the manufacturers. The CEO of Fiat told people not to buy the 500e, the Soul EV is very limited in availability. Just last month the Leaf was available with a $10k rebate. It seems like GM loses ~$7k on each Bolt right now. Tesla seems like one of the few which would be making money if they weren't reinvesting.

One problem with the rapid advances in batteries (which are usually ~50% of the cost) is that older EVs lose their value horrifically. Even after you account for the tax credits, an older Leaf for example (which might have only a 50 mile usable range at this point) is around $5-6k. I expect that when the new Teslas start rolling out that will drop even more. But at some point, probably not to long from now, the battery prices will mean that the cost for a reasonable range will be competitive with ICEs. But if you think that time is right now, I think you're mistaken.

It's not as impressive as it sounds first

[thenitz]

The first time you read the title, it seems like Volvo will only sell electric cars in 2 years time and they will become another Tesla.

Then, if you pay attention, it says that starting 2019, all new models will have an electric engine in them. Yes, this includes mild hybrids, basically energy recovery systems where the electric engine only gives a boost, but it's too small to drive on electric power alone. And yes, they will keep producing the old models for a while.

This is good news, but by no means earth-shattering. I understand most of the European manufacturers will introduce mild hybrids across their range, due to very strict emission standards coming 2020. A PR coup for Volvo, for making public a decision that everyone in the industry will eventually take, and soon.

Re: Ha!

[losfromla]

Yeah, you're right. And everyone knows there is infinite, endless petroleum underground. Price of oil doesn't wildly fluctuate with political, economic, and butterfly flapping effects so whatever the price is now is what it will continue to be until the rapture, right?

Re:Ha!

[Rei]

You're right for bitumen, but there is zero correlation between how "dirty" an oil is and it either being in a tight reservoir or from deepwater except in a broader sense of energy cost.

Energy cost is precisely the issue. Energy in oil production almost always corresponds directly to CO2 emissions.

Abundance in the crust does not necessarily reflect extractability of deposits

No, but as I mentioned, price does. And neither lithium carbonate nor cobalt oxide (aka the raw materials) are particularly expensive. Furthermore, the person said "rare", which does mean abundance.

The latter source has come to dominate because it is generally cheaper, but is still quite energy intensive and both of them involve mining or evaporation pond operations that disturb the surface terrain over large areas. he fact the natural playa floods, typically annually, doesn't make the surface disturbance go away.

Dominate overwhelmingly at present (although pegmatites might make a comeback due to booming demand). No, it's not particularly energy intensive, and I'm going to dispute the statement that the evaporation ponds stick around through flood (unless you have something to back that up); production cost reports regularly note that the annual loss of the evaporation ponds makes flooding salars more expensive to produce from (but they represent some of the largest and richest resources). They're made of salt. You don't flood something made of salt, with water, and then have it stick around.

The GP was trying to make the produditon of lithium sound like some scar-gouging strip mine. Here's what it actually looks like. It's hard to think of a means of mining that has less impact on the landscape.

Re:Ha!

[blindseer]

Perhaps you could explain where I am mistaken?

I'll elaborate further. Consider a drive train with ICE -> transmission -> electric motor -> differential -> wheels. The transmission is capable of park, neutral, and at least two forward gear ratios.

Process to move car from standstill:
With ICE running and transmission in neutral the driver pushes accelerator and electric motor propels the vehicle. When transmission input to output ratio matches first gear shift engage first gear.

Up shift:
As car accelerates disengage gearing, throttle down ICE until input to output ratio matches next highest gear, increase motor power, engage higher gear, throttle up ICE to continue accelerating with ICE and motor sharing load.

Down shift:
As vehicle slows increase motor power and disengage gear, throttle up engine until input and output transmission ratios match next lower gear, engage lower gear, throttle up ICE to allow electric motor to reduce power.

Slow speed or come to stop:
Increase motor power to allow transmission to disengage, reduce motor power, when/if driver engages brakes then cut motor power.

Reverse:
Disengage transmission, use electric motor alone to propel vehicle. Once at a stop the process to park the vehicle is the transmission engages park (by engaging multiple ratio gearing to lock up transmission). Going forward from stop is as above.

The drive train is simplified, lighter, at the cost of more advanced transmission control computer connected to the ICE throttle. The accelerator would simply be a "volume control" where the user can indicate to the drive train computer the desired speed.

So, not much different than many other hybrids. Also, not much different than what one of my professors mention as his proposal for a hybrid vehicle.

How does this not work?

Re:Ha!

[Rei]

Exactly. Utilities have been salivating over the prospect of electric cars for quite some time; they've been early adopters, even when the tech wasn't up to snuff, and provided significant support for some of the early cross-country EV road trips. They don't just mean more sales, they mean more sales predominantly at times when demand is low, meaning they can use their existing infrastructure to make them more money. The fact that it's at worst a steady draw, and at best a draw which they can adjust within user-set bounds, makes it a dream come true. Fast charging is undesirable to them, but if 5% of charging is fast charging from people on road trips and the other 95% is predominantly overnight home charging, that's a tradeoff they'll gladly take.