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Volvo To Open Battery R&D Center In Gothenburg With Partner Northvolt

Volvo and Northvolt will open a joint research and development center in Gothenburg, Sweden. The center will be tasked with developing new batteries for EVs that deliver on range and charging time expectations while reducing the carbon footprint of the batteries themselves.

The R&D center will become operational in 2022 and the location has been chosen to keep it close to Volvo’s own R&D center as well as Northvolt‘s existing innovation campus in Västerås, Sweden, to ease cooperation.

“Our partnership with Northvolt secures the supply of high-quality, sustainably-produced batteries for the next generation of pure electric Volvos,” said Håkan Samuelsson, chief executive for Volvo Cars. “It will strengthen our core competencies and our position in the transformation to a fully electric car company.”

Volvo says that the partnership will focus on developing “tailor-made” batteries that give buyers long ranges and quick charging times. The automaker wants to collaborate with Northvolt to create an end-to-end system for battery manufacturing to allow it to develop its own batteries. Since batteries are the single largest component of an electric vehicle and the single biggest contributor to their carbon footprint, the development of new technology will be an important area of focus.

The center is being created as part of a SEK30 billion ($3.3 billion) investment in battery development. Batteries developed there will also power Polestar vehicles, which announced this year that it intends to build climate-neutral cars by 2030.

Following the completion of the R&D center, Volvo and Northvolt will build a battery manufacturing plant in Europe. Although the exact location of the site is not yet known, Volvo says it will be announced in early 2022.

The plant will have a potential annual capacity of 50 GWh, enough to supply about 500,000 vehicles, the automaker says. Construction is expected to commence in 2023 and large-scale production should kick off in 2026. Part of Volvo’s commitment to sell only electric vehicles by 2030, the plant and the R&D center are quite important when it comes to the automaker’s plans for the future.

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This Odd Looking Volvo Is The World’s First Vehicle Made Of Fossil-Free Steel

The Volvo Group unveiled a load carrier designed for use in mining in quarrying that it claims is the first vehicle ever made of steel made using no fossil fuel.

The unveiling follows the automaker’s announcement in June that it would partner with SSAB to source steel made without the use of fossil fuels. The steel is made using hydrogen instead of the carbon-intensive coking coal that is traditionally used in steel production.

Per SSAB, the steel industry accounts for about 7 percent of global direct carbon emissions. That, in turn, accounts for about 35 percent of the CO2 emitted in the manufacturing of Volvo’s internal combustion vehicles or 20 percent for EVs.

“Having the world´s first actual vehicle made using SSAB´s fossil-free steel is a true milestone,” said Martin Lindqvist, President and CEO of SSAB. “Our collaboration with Volvo Group shows that green transition is possible and brings results.”

This is just the first in a series of concept vehicles as Volvo plans to debut more in 2022. The steel will play an important part in reducing Volvo’s carbon emissions, something it has committed to doing, saying that it will be climate neutral by 2040.

“Volvo Group is committed to pioneering partnerships such as this with SSAB to develop attractive, safe, and efficient new vehicles and machines that pave the way for a more sustainable transport and infrastructure system adopted for the future,” said Martin Lundstedt, President and CEO Volvo Group.

Unfortunately, Volvo won’t be able to make production vehicles with the steel for a few years as SSAB anticipates that it will only be ready to produce steel at a commercial scale in 2026. When that happens, it will be joined by Mercedes, which has also signed a deal with SSAB for its steel. The German automaker plans to produce the first prototype body parts using the steel next year.

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Volvo P1800 From Cyan Racing Is An Absolute Firecracker Of A Restomod

The remarkable Volvo P1800 Cyan is a car like no other and AutoTopNL recently had the opportunity to test it out.

Cyan Racing is the official racing arm of the Geely Group and has used the original Volvo P1800 as the base for this restomod. The car is powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder with 413 hp and 355 lb-ft (455 Nm) of torque that’s paired to a dog-leg five-speed manual transmission. This engine is based on the one used in the Volvo S60 TC1 race car and has actually been tested to 528 hp.

Those are some pretty remarkable figures for a four-cylinder and making the P1800 all the more impressive is the fact that it weighs just 990 kg (2,182 lbs). Consequently, it is pretty quick and during this review, sprinted from 100 km/h (62 mph) to 200 km/h (124 mph) in just 8.32 seconds.

Elsewhere, this modern-day P1800 has new bodywork, wider tracks and large wheels. Many of the parts are made from carbon fiber, including parts of the chassis that are also reinforced with high-strength steel.

Driving the car seems to be an absolute joy. While Cyan Racing could have done what some other companies are doing with classics and converted it to an all-electric powertrain, it stuck to its motorsport roots and has created something that really gets petrolheads blood pumping.

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Volvo’s Sales Of Plug-In Hybrids Have Soared By 80% This Year

Volvo Cars’ global sales of its plug-in hybrid models jumped by 80 per cent in the first half of the year on the back of strong demand in Europe. This puts Volvo within reach of having its electrified models account for 20 per cent of its global sales.

In Europe, Volvo sold a total of 123,198 vehicles in the first six months of 2020. Of these, 29,918 were plug-in hybrids, accounting for 24 per cent of sales. That’s a significant increase over the 15,643 plug-in hybrids that Volvo shifted last year in Europe, or 9 per cent of the 174,653 vehicles it sold in the first half of 2019.

Globally, plug-in hybrids accounted for 14 per cent of the Swedish automaker’s sales. In total, it delivered 37,775 PHEVs, up from the 21,015 during the same period in 2019. Auto News reports that 79 per cent of Volvo’s sales were in Europe during the first six months. Plug-in hybrid variants of the V60 and XC40 proved particularly popular.

In China, on the other hand, PHEVs accounted for 3.2 per cent of Volvo’s sales or about 2,100 units, driven primarily by demand for the S90.

Last year, Volvo set a target of having plug-in hybrids account for 20 per cent of its global sales in 2020. Chief executive Hakan Samuelsson says this target is still in sight despite the coronavirus pandemic.

“That [target] definitely has not been halted by the pandemic. Customers are asking for advanced electric cars,” he said. “Revenues [from the sale of plug-in hybrids] have covered the material cost increase from moving to electrification. Long term, what would be really bad for your profitability is trying to sell those old school cars.”