Volvo India has announced the launch of the all-new V90 Cross Country estate wagon on July 12th, 2017. The Volvo V90 Cross Country is the only luxury estate wagon in India with off-roading capabilities and tons of safety features.
Volvo recently organized a media drive for the V90 and we drove the car to understand what’s the product all about. And we came out impressed with the overall treatment of the product by Volvo. Not only it looks different and unique, the V90 also has AWD and radar based safety system called the Intellisafe system.
Every new Volvo will be a hybrid or electric car after 2019
Volvo is betting the company on hybrid and electric cars.
[ Volvo models will be hybrids or battery-powered electric vehicles.
The company will continue selling the gasoline-powered car models it already has on the market. But all of Volvo’s new cars will have electric motors — including five fully electric vehicles Volvo expects to introduce between 2019 and 2021.
“This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car,” said Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson in a company press release. The company hopes that a decisive shift toward battery-powered vehicles will allow it to meet its goal of producing a cumulative total of a million electrified vehicles by 2025.
This is a particularly bold move because right now, hybrid and battery-powered electric cars account for a tiny fraction of the global car market. Hybrids accounted for about 2 percent of the US car market in 2016, for example. But experts expect explosive growth in these numbers over the next decade.
Until recently, high battery costs have forced carmakers to choose between making unaffordable electric cars — like Tesla’s $69,500 Model S — or skimp on battery capacity and make cars whose range and power compare unfavorably to cars with conventional gasoline-powered engines.
But battery costs are plunging. Prices fell by almost 80 percent between 2010 and 2016. And with manufacturers in China and elsewhere preparing to dramatically boost battery production, we can expect economies of scale to push prices down even more over the next few years.
As a result, the economics of electric-powered vehicles have gotten a lot more favorable. Batteries have gotten cheap enough that all-electric cars like the Chevy Bolt and the new Tesla Model 3 can boast more than 200 miles of range and sell for around $35,000. And if battery prices continue falling, we’ll eventually reach a point where electric cars — with their relatively simple electric motors and low-cost electric power — actually cost less to own than a conventional car with its more complex internal combustion engine. One 2016 study projected that we could reach this point as early as 2022.
At that point, the companies with the best electric-powered cars will have a big advantage over companies that are still mostly selling cars with internal combustion engines. Electric cars will be greener, more convenient, and less expensive to own. The stock market is so bullish about this strategy that it has valued Tesla on par with conventional car companies like GM and Ford that sold about 100 times as many cars in 2016.
Volvo wants to catch the same wave Tesla is riding. Tesla has set a goal to produce 500,000 electric cars per year in 2018 and a million in 2020. Volvo’s goal is much less ambitious: the company hopes to produce a total of 1 million cars over the next eight years. Volvo set this goal last year, and it now looks relatively conservative in light of Volvo’s all-electric push. The company sold 534,000 vehicles in 2016, so if it shifts most of its sales to electric vehicles in the early 2020s it will sell a lot more than a million electric cars by 2025.
In any event, ending development of conventional cars with internal combustion engines will put Volvo on a solid footing if electricity proves to be the future of the auto industry.]
The V90 Cross Country is equipped with the Volvo’s D5 engine that is powered by a 2.0-litre turbocharged motor with 235 HP power and 480 Nm torque output. The engine is mated to a 8-speed automatic gearbox.
To reduce the turbo lag in the car, Volvo has equipped the estate wagon with a Power Pulse Technology that houses an air cannister to give extra boost to engine before the hot air from thr turbo kicks in, reducing the lag in the car.
We told exclusively that the Volvo V90 Cross Country could be priced for Rs 64-67 lakhs and will be placed in between the Volvo S90 sedan and the XC90 SUV.
Keep a tab on this space to check our detailed review of the car!
Volvo will introduce five electric cars by 2021 and offer hybrid options across its product line, promising the ‘historic end’ of internal combustion engines
Volvo is phasing out cars relying on combustion engines, with every new model launched from 2019 to have an electric motor, as the shift away from the technology that’s dominated the auto industry for more than a century gathers pace.
Promising the “historic end” of cars that have only combustion engines, Volvo Car Group will introduce five electric models by 2021 and offer hybrid options across its product line, according to a statement on Wednesday.
“This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car,” Volvo Chief Executive Officer Hakan Samuelsson said in the statement. “Volvo Cars has stated that it plans to have sold a total of 1 million electrified cars by 2025. This is how we are going to do it.”
Conventional automakers from BMW AG to Volkswagen AG’s Audi are electrifying their line-ups to meet tightening emissions regulations and better compete with segment pioneer Tesla Inc., which starts making its third model this week.
In an effort to woo reluctant customers, manufacturers are offering longer driving ranges and more attractive designs.
BMW has said an electric model—dubbed the iNext—will replace the 7-Series as its flagship in 2021.
Daimler AG’s Mercedes plans to release 10 new electric vehicles by 2022, earlier than previously announced.
Both carmakers expect battery-powered cars to account for as much 25% of sales in about 10 years.
Audi has said every model line will have a hybrid or purely battery-powered variant by 2020.
Volvo, which is owned by Chinese billionaire Li Shufu, said in April that its first electric vehicle will be a Chinese-made compact car that starts deliveries in 2019.
The model will be exported globally and be based on the platform of the company’s XC40 compact SUV.
China is becoming the biggest market for electric cars, and authorities are looking at ambitious production quotas that would be enforced with fines on manufacturers.
Of the five new cars, two will be part of Volvo’s high-performance Polestar sub-brand, and they will be supplemented by a range of gasoline and diesel plug-in hybrid and 48-volt options on all models.
“This means that there will, in future, be no Volvo cars without an electric motor,” Volvo said in the statement. Bloomberg
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