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Volvo Cars is tripling electric car manufacturing capacity at its plant in Ghent, Belgium as it prepares to meet fast-growing demand for its Recharge line-up of chargeable cars. The capacity increase comes as Volvo Cars also reports its full-year sales results for 2020, which showed a strong growth in demand for the company’s Recharge models. The share of Recharge cars as a percentage of total sales more than doubled in 2020, compared to 2019. By 2022, electric car capacity at the Ghent plant will have more than tripled from today’s levels and amount to around 60 per cent of the plant’s total production capacity. Ghent is currently preparing to take a second fully electric Volvo model, based on the CMA modular vehicle architecture, into production later this year. The plant already builds the XC40 Recharge, the company’s first fully electric car, as well as a plug-in hybrid version of the XC40. “Our future is electric and customers clearly like what they see from our Recharge cars,” said Javier Varela, head of global industrial operations and quality. “As we continue to electrify our line-up and boost our electric production capacity, Ghent is a real trailblazer for our global manufacturing network.” Volvo Cars is committed to becoming a premium electric car company and in coming years, the company will launch several fully electric cars. By 2025, it aims for its global sales to consist of 50 per cent fully electric cars, with the rest hybrids. While Ghent is the first of its global manufacturing network to start building fully electric cars, the company also has plans to increase electric car manufacturing capacity at its other facilities around the globe. Last month, Volvo Cars also announced it will assemble electric motors at its powertrain plant in Skövde, Sweden, and plans to establish complete in-house e-motor production by mid-decade. It will invest 700 million SEK to this end in coming years. The company is also investing significantly in the in-house design and development of e-motors for the next generation of Volvo cars. ——————————- Volvo Car Group in 2019 For the 2019 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 14.3 BSEK (14.2 BSEK in 2018). Revenue over the period amounted to 274.1 BSEK (252.7 BSEK). For the full year 2019, global sales reached a record 705,452 (642,253) cars, an increase of 9.8 per cent versus 2018. The results underline the comprehensive transformation of Volvo Cars’ finances and operations in recent years, positioning the company for its next growth phase. About Volvo Car Group Volvo Cars was founded in 1927. Today, it is one of the most well-known and respected car brands in the world with sales of 705,452 cars in 2019 in about 100 countries. Volvo Cars has been under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding since 2010. In 2019, Volvo Cars employed on average approximately 41,500 (41,500) full-time employees. Volvo Cars head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Volvo Cars head office for APAC is located in Shanghai. The company’s main car production plants are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), South Carolina (US), Chengdu and Daqing (China), while engines are manufactured in Skövde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China) and body components in Olofström (Sweden). Under its new company purpose, Volvo Cars aims to provide customers with the Freedom to Move in a personal, sustainable and safe way. This purpose is reflected into a number of business ambitions: for example, by the middle of this decade it aims for half of its global sales to be fully electric cars and to establish five million direct consumer relationships. Volvo Cars is also committed to an ongoing reduction of its carbon footprint, with the ambition to be a climate-neutral company by 2040.

Volvo Cars reported the strongest second-half sales numbers in the company’s history in 2020, as fast-growing demand for its electrified cars boosted the company’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic impact. The company acted decisively to mitigate the impact of the pandemic during the first half of the year, allowing it to quickly restart its operations after a brief shutdown and embark on a strong recovery, helped by fast-growing demand for its Recharge line-up of chargeable cars. The share of Recharge models, with a fully electric or plug-in hybrid powertrain, more than doubled in 2020 compared to 2019. In Europe, the share of Recharge cars of overall sales was 29 per cent, making Volvo the leading brand in the region for chargeable cars. It was also a leading plug-in hybrid brand in the US. In China and the United States, its two largest individual markets, the company reported growing sales for the full year as it managed to more than recover a pandemic-related sale drop in the first half during the second half of the year. “We had a great second half of the year after a tough start, gaining market share in all our main sales regions,” said Lex Kerssemakers, head of Global Commercial Operations. “We aim to build on this positive trend in 2021 as we continue to roll out new electrified Volvos and expand our online business.” While sales dropped by 21 per cent in the first half, the company resumed its growth trajectory of recent years in the second half of 2020, reporting solid month on month growth from June onwards. Sales rose by 7.4 per cent to 391,751 cars in the second half compared to the same period in 2019. Globally, Volvo Cars sold 661,713 cars in 2020, a decline of 6.2 per cent compared to 2019. Although final numbers for the full year are yet to be confirmed, the company outperformed its competitors and gained market share in all its main sales regions during the first eleven months of the year. Sales rose by 7.5 per cent in China in 2020, to 166,617 cars, compared to 2019. In the US, the company sold 110,129 cars, a 1.8 per cent increase compared to the year before. In both markets, strong demand for the company’s award-winning SUV line-up was responsible for the majority of sales volumes. In Europe, Volvo Cars saw strong demand for its Recharge cars in many key markets. A sluggish overall market, held down by pandemic-related restrictions, meant that overall sales fell by 15.5 per cent for the whole year. The pandemic also accelerated the company’s move towards online sales, which will continue to be a focus area in 2021. In 2020, Volvo Cars more than doubled its number of subscriptions sold online versus 2019. Conquest rates via this channel continued to be high, supporting the increase in market share. Volvo Cars is committed to becoming a premium electric car company and in coming years, the company will launch several fully electric cars. By 2025, it aims for its global sales to consist of 50 per cent fully electric cars, with the rest hybrids. It is currently the only car maker to offer a plug-in hybrid variant on every model in its portfolio. ——————————- Volvo Car Group in 2019 For the 2019 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 14.3 BSEK (14.2 BSEK in 2018). Revenue over the period amounted to 274.1 BSEK (252.7 BSEK). For the full year 2019, global sales reached a record 705,452 (642,253) cars, an increase of 9.8 per cent versus 2018. The results underline the comprehensive transformation of Volvo Cars’ finances and operations in recent years, positioning the company for its next growth phase. About Volvo Car Group Volvo Cars was founded in 1927. Today, it is one of the most well-known and respected car brands in the world with sales of 705,452 cars in 2019 in about 100 countries. Volvo Cars has been under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding since 2010. In 2019, Volvo Cars employed on average approximately 41,500 (41,500) full-time employees. Volvo Cars head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Volvo Cars head office for APAC is located in Shanghai. The company’s main car production plants are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), South Carolina (US), Chengdu and Daqing (China), while engines are manufactured in Skövde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China) and body components in Olofström (Sweden). Under its new company purpose, Volvo Cars aims to provide customers with the Freedom to Move in a personal, sustainable and safe way. This purpose is reflected into a number of business ambitions: for example, by the middle of this decade it aims for half of its global sales to be fully electric cars and to establish five million direct consumer relationships. Volvo Cars is also committed to an ongoing reduction of its carbon footprint, with the ambition to be a climate-neutral company by 2040.

A vast offer of high-quality apps, easier and more convenient ownership, and even safer cars: these are among the ambitions that Volvo Cars wants to achieve with its newly launched Innovation Portal. The portal makes a broad variety of resources and tools available for free, allowing external developers to create new innovative services and in-car apps. With the help of a wider development of software and services for its products, Volvo Cars aims to greatly increase the possibilities for its customers to make their Volvo cars more personal. The portal’s resources are not only useful for developers, but also for researchers, smart-home tinkerers and computer-savvy artists. By making these available, Volvo Cars continues its long tradition of sharing knowledge and research to contribute to safer roads for all. “Our cars are becoming increasingly smarter and more connected, and with that comes a growing demand for apps and services among our customers,” said Henrik Green, chief technology officer at Volvo Cars. “By making these resources publicly available, we support developers in- and outside our company, and collaborate with the best of the best in their fields.” The resources available on the Innovation Portal include a so-called emulator that recreates the Android Automotive Operating System and Google apps used in new Volvos, providing developers with an accurate in-car experience of the system on their computer. This emulator is a helpful tool in supporting app developers to design, develop, test and publish apps directly on Google Play in the car. The platform will also feature the Extended Vehicle API*, marking the first time Volvo Cars offers an API to the public. With customers’ consent, the API allows developers and other third parties to access car dashboard data, such as charge/fuel level and distance travelled, and use it to build and provide new services. Additional data and data sources will be made available over time. Other resources include a LiDAR dataset and a downloadable production 3D car model of the fully electric Volvo XC40 Recharge. The LiDAR dataset is released together with Luminar, the global leader in automotive LiDAR hardware and software technology, and Duke University. It has been created using Luminar’s high performance LiDAR sensors, which detect objects around the car up to 250 metres away by scanning the environment with pulses of laser lights. This dataset can help researchers to improve algorithms related to long range LiDAR detection, a crucial element to create autonomous cars that are safe at high speeds and in complex traffic environments. The high-fidelity 3D car model is developed in collaboration with Unity, the company behind the world’s leading platform for creating and operating real-time 3D content. Unity is used by creators ranging from game developers to artists, architects, filmmakers and automotive designers. The car model and an accompanying 3D environment are suitable for use in visualisation applications, virtual reality, cinematic experiences and car configurators. These resources are also available as base tools on Unity’s developer hub, where millions of Unity users get access to tutorials on how to use the template. The Innovation Portal will grow continuously with more and more resources added over time. Within the next few months, a fully functional 3D car model will be released. It will feature digital replications of the car’s physical sensors, allowing users to test sensor data for research and education purposes. Developers will also be able to use the model to build new functions and services. Visit the site now by following this link.

Volvo Cars ill assemble electric motors at its powertrain plant in Skövde, Sweden, and plans to establish complete in-house e-motor production by mid-decade. It will invest 700 million SEK to this end in coming years. The company is committed to becoming a premium electric car company and aims for its global sales to consist of 50 per cent fully electric cars by 2025, with the rest hybrids. The Skövde operations have been part of the Volvo Cars story ever since the company’s founding in 1927. Adding e-motor production to the plant’s activities means the historic ground in Skövde will be a part of the company’s future as well. Volvo Cars announced earlier this year that it is investing significantly in the in-house design and development of e-motors for the next generation of Volvo cars. With the planned investments in Skövde, it now takes the first steps towards in-house e-motor assembly and manufacturing. In a first stage, the Skövde facility will assemble e-motors. At a later stage, the company intends to bring the full manufacturing process for e-motors in-house into a facility in Skövde. “The very first Volvo from 1927 was powered by an engine built in Skövde,” said Javier Varela, senior vice president of Industrial Operations and Quality. “The team is highly skilled and committed to delivering on the highest quality standards. So it is only fitting that they will be a part of our exciting future.” Taking over the role of the internal combustion engine in car engineering, e-motors are a fundamental building block of electric cars, together with the battery and power electronics. The interplay between these three component areas is crucial in developing premium electric cars. Bringing the development and production of e-motors in-house will allow Volvo Cars engineers to further optimise electric motors and the entire electric driveline in new Volvos. This approach will allow engineers to make further gains in terms of energy efficiency and overall performance. Design and development of the company’s electric motors takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden and Shanghai, China. Earlier this year Volvo Cars opened a new electric motor lab in Shanghai, in addition to ongoing e-motor development in Gothenburg, Sweden and state-of-the-art battery labs in China and Sweden. The remaining activities at the Skövde engine plant, focusing on the production of internal combustion engines, will be transferred to a separate subsidiary of Volvo Cars, named Powertrain Engineering Sweden (PES). PES is intended to be merged with Geely’s combustion engine operations, as announced earlier.

Volvo Cars engineers call it “the ultimate driving simulator”, but it is not just an excuse for them to indulge their inner basement gamer. Instead, the Swedish company’s ground-breaking mixed-reality simulator is used to make new strides in safety and autonomous driving technology. A setup with a moving driving seat, a steering wheel with haptic feedback and a crystal-clear virtual reality headset would make any serious gamer jealous, but Volvo Cars’ simulator takes this concept to the next level, making it hard to tell reality from simulation. Which is exactly the point. Using cutting-edge technology from the leading real-time 3D development platform Unity and Finnish virtual and mixed reality experts Varjo, the simulator involves driving a real car on real roads. It combines life-like, high definition 3D graphics, an augmented reality headset, and a full-body Teslasuit that provides haptic feedback from a virtual world, while also monitoring bodily reactions. This combination of software and hardware allows Volvo Cars engineers to endlessly simulate traffic scenarios on a real test track road while using a real car, all in total safety. Engineers can gain important insights on the interaction between people and the car for development of new safety, driver assistance and autonomous driving features. Testers can be exposed to imagined active safety and driver assistance features, upcoming autonomous drive user interfaces, future car models and many other scenarios. It can be used on real test track roads or in the test lab, and every scenario is fully customizable. The possibilities are literally endless. Volvo Cars “ultimate simulator” was demonstrated yesterday in an event live-streamed from Volvo’s Open Innovation Arena and hosted by a team of its innovation experts. You can watch the event on demand HERE. Last year, together with Varjo, Volvo Cars became the first car maker to make it possible to drive a real car while wearing a mixed reality headset. Now that collaboration has been expanded to include Unity and full-body haptic suit maker Teslasuit. According to Casper Wickman, senior leader of User Experience at Volvo’s Open Innovation Arena and one of the hosts of the livestream, this enables Volvo Cars to study authentic human reactions in a safe environment and at a fraction of the cost of a real test. “Working together with great companies like Varjo, Unity and Teslasuit has allowed us to test so many scenarios that look and feel totally real, without having to physically build anything,” says Casper Wickman. “It lets us test drive actual cars in through traffic scenarios that look and feel real, but can be adjusted at the touch of a button.” When developing safety systems for cars, like collision-avoiding technologies, testing is crucial. But testing these systems in reality can be dangerous, time-consuming and expensive. Virtual and mixed reality simulations, however, allow for perfectly safe testing in authentic environments, without having to build any physical prototypes or set up complex scenarios. “By using this cutting-edge technology, we are exploring and leading the development for creating safe cars in the future. It’s great to play a part in that,” said Casper Wickman. Watch the full livestream recording here and download the summary video of the event here. Technology showcased: Varjo Mixed Reality Headset Last year, Volvo Cars, together with Varjo, became the first car maker to make it possible to drive a real car while wearing a mixed reality headset. The Varjo XR-1 Developer Edition headset uses video cameras to enable mixed reality and provides mixed or virtual reality at a high-definition resolution. With the Varjo XR-1 headset, the objects and environments created in Unity can be seamlessly integrated into the real world. Teslasuit Through the application of forces, vibrations, or motions, haptic technology makes it possible to recreate the experience of touch when interacting with the virtual world. By wearing Teslasuit’s advanced full-body haptic suit, Volvo’s simulation testers can physically feel small reproductions of the forces one would experience in a crash, while experiencing no actual risk. The suit also enables Volvo’s engineers to test these reactions by studying how muscles, stress levels, and heart rate react under stress, and apply this learning in creating the next generation of safety systems aimed at avoiding and mitigating risky situations. Unity Simulation Engines The simulation scenarios are created using the latest real-time 3D software from Unity, the company behind one of the world’s most popular development platforms for video game development. Using Unity, Volvo experts can create virtual environments and objects to use in simulations or put a fully accurate 3D model of any Volvo car design into any virtual environment, assessing the design in different lights, locations and weather.