► Volvo abandons diesel engines
► Derv models axed from spring 2024
► Swedes go all in on electrification
In news that’ll surprise nobody, Volvo Cars has announced it’ll kill off all diesel engines early next year – focusing instead on pure electric Volvo and hybrid petrol models. The Swedish car maker made the announcement at Climate Week NYC in the US.
‘Electric powertrains are our future, and superior to combustion engines: they generate less noise, less vibration, less servicing costs for our customers and zero tailpipe emissions,’ said Volvo CEO Jim Rowan. ‘We’re fully focused on creating a broad portfolio of premium, fully electric cars that deliver on everything our customers expect from a Volvo – and are a key part of our response to climate change.’
Volvo will stop building diesel engines in early 2024 and the manufacturer confirmed it is no longer investing in combustion engines at all. ‘We’re no longer spending a single krona of our R&D budget on developing new internal combustion engines,’ it revealed in a statement.
Diesel Volvos RIP: a rapid U-turn
As recently as 2019, diesel engines made up the majority of Volvo production globally, the company admitted. The growing importance of sustainability and the fall-out from Covid lockdowns and supply chain issues have accelerated the electric transformation at Volvo, and other car makers.
It is far from the first manufacturer to abandon diesel engines; brands like Porsche committed to dropping derv as long ago as 2018, in the wake of the dieselgate emissions crisis at parent company Volkswagen.
Volvo has now thrown its industrial might behind fully electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) powertrains. Witness new EVs such as the upcoming Volvo EX90, the first in a new generation of electric-only models.