Volvo will develop a third-generation XC90 SUV, the company's CEO has said, as the phase-out of combustion-engined models takes longer than the brand originally predicted.
Volvo has recently facelifted the 10-year-old XC90 after giving it a reprieve from the axe amid delays to the EX90 large electric SUV, which was originally intended as its replacement.
However, CEO Håkan Samuelsson said a third-generation model is on the cards. “We will need a new XC90,” he told investors on the company’s second-quarter earnings call, pointing out that the current model was first launched in 2015, but he stopped short of giving a potential launch date for its replacement.
A new XC90 is likely to be a long-range plug-in hybrid after Samuelsson indicated that the technology will make it over to Europe from China, where Volvo will start production of the new XC70 plug-in hybrid (below) with a claimed 112-mile electric range in the next three months.
“This is something I think European consumers will want to have,” he said. “Plug-in hybrids with a longer range are a solution that probably we will need for some more years than we thought.”
Volvo had committed in 2021 to going all-electric by 2030 but has since backtracked due to the varying pace of EV take-up globally.
The XC70 is built on a new Geely platform called SMA (Scalable Modular Architecture) and it could also underpin a new XC90.
The facelifted XC90 plug-in hybrid continues with a comparatively small battery of just under 15kWh compared with either 21kWh or 40kWh for the XC70.
The XC90's shorter-range battery will penalise the facelifted SUV under new emissions-testing rules coming in at the end of the year that recalculate the CO2 figure for plug-in hybrids, making those with smaller batteries more expensive to tax as a company car.
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