Is volvo challenging Tesla by going electric

Volvo Cars announced that its entire lineup with either become electric or hybridized by 2019.

In the last quarter of a century since Volvo rolled 240 wagon off an assembly line, its creator has gone from a modest Swedish independent automaker to part of a massive American conglomerate to an arm of a Chinese automaker that’s pushing driverless cars and racing to go fully electric in the next two years.

 Volvo 240 Wagon

Volvo invented and made standard today's three-point seat belt. It tested rear-facing child seat in '70s. Volvo has vowed to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries in its cars by 2020 and now it has decided that from 2019 onwards all its new cars will come with an electrical cord.

Volvo's announcement may be a PR stunt designed to capitalize on the propulsion method du jour. Tesla is a company that sells less than 80,000 electric cars a year but boasts a market cap on par with General Motors which has 10 million in annual sales.

Proponents of electric mobility applaud Volvo for being mainstream automaker brave enough to take the plunge. Its a good move by Volvo which would bring some competition to tesla which has refrained itself from entering various emerging markets like India where Volvo has made its presence.

Volvo's decision to hitch its wagon to the electric revolution also makes a tremendous amount of sense. With Drive-E engines under the hood of all new Volvos, the company is far less invested in internal combustion than the vast majority of mainstream automakers.

Volvo uses a hybrid drive system to give its top-of-the-line XC90 T8 SUV a 100 horsepower boost and to create a virtual all-wheel-drive system by employing an electric motor on its rear axle.Hybrid drive system's electric motors deliver valuable low-end torque, which is missing in all small displacement engines.

















Volvo Cars has announced that it will introduce a portfolio of electrified cars across its model range from fully electric cars, plug-in hybrid cars and mild-hybrid cars.

Volvo will launch five electric car models between 2019 and 2021, three of which will be Volvo branded models and two of which will be from its performance car arm, Polestar.

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These five cars will be supplemented by a range of petrol and diesel plug-in hybrid and mild-hybrid 48-volt options on all models Volvo's decision to go electric is once again a reminder that the Swedish automaker is busy at work nudging the industry forward as it has for nearly a century.

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