The Swedish automaker Volvo Cars only wants to market electric models by 2030. Moreover, those cars are only sold online, the Swedes have announced.
With that, it wants to make the purchase of a car easier. Dealers can still help with this but are also there for service and the cars’ delivery.
With the 2030 deadline, the company has become more ambitious than it was a few years ago. In 2017, Volvo intended to offer hybrid options for all cars in 2019 and market five fully electric models by Volvo and its subsidiary Polestar by this year.
That goal has not yet been achieved. The counter has been on one fully electric Volvo, the XC40 Recharge, and one electric Polestar, the Polestar 2. Volvo will introduce a new electric car later Tuesday.
By 2025, half of all cars sold must already be fully electric. Volvo previously targeted 1 million electric cars sold in that year.
Volvo is owned by the Chinese Geely Cars and would merge with that company. That amalgamation was called off last month. Volvo and Geely do want to work more closely together, including in the field of electric driving.
More and more automakers are choosing only to sell their cars online after Tesla started doing so. For example, Volkswagen has already indicated that it only wants to sell its electric vehicles via the internet. To make online sales easier, Volvo will offer its cars in a few configurations, with fewer options available to the buyer.