Volvo fired up about dropping ICE

 Sweden’s ambition to produce only fully electric cars by 2030 conceivably puts a PHEV XC40 about to come on sale in NZ on a hit list. But it should achieve a full life, the brand reckons.

Volvo’s EV strategy announcement means the XC40 Recharge PHEV (above) just introducing to New Zealand now will be superseded by 2030 by a new line of full electric products, starting with the C40 Recharge (below) that is destined to on sale in NZ next year.

VOLVO announcing overnight its intent to sell only battery-driven cars within 10 years has highlighted the interim status of a just-arrived hybrid sports utility that the make’s New Zealand distributor is using to woo electric-favouring consumers. 

The decision out of Sweden comes with announcement of a new fully electric crossover, the C40 Recharge, that will likely be on sale here next year.

The pledge to phase out all car models with internal combustion engines by 2030 potentially means the new $84,900 XC40 Recharge nydrid that is being promoted as Volvo New Zealand’s sole electric choice of the moment might yet have a reasonably modest life span.

Is that going to be a turn-off? Volvo New Zealand boss Ben Montgomery does not believe the market will judge the PHEV car as any kind of temporary technology.

He stands by expectation, expressed in mid-February, that the Recharge PHEV will be a strong seller.

“It’s still an education process with electric, in terms of what’s available and what it does and what’s available to buy right now.

“I think the PHEV is that perfect halfway step, where you are getting the benefits of electric-only propulsion but at the same time you have not got those range queries. 

“So it’s the perfect stepping stone for us.

“We have still got seven years before the complete end of ICE (internal combustion engines) and in the meantime we are taking some really big steps locally. 

“From model year 2022 there will be no diesels and we are moving toward MHEV (mild hybrid) and PHEV in the 60 and 90 range. It will be incremental steps, but I don’t think it will put customers off.”

Volvo previously announced that by 2025, half of its sales would be fully electric, with the rest being hybrids. It is also committed to becoming climate neutral by 2040 and putting one million EVs on the roads within the next four years.

Montgomery says Kiwis can expect to see a rapid increase in the access of premium electrified and hybrid models available here. 

Plug-in hybrids now make up almost a third of Volvo sales in Europe, making Volvo the leading plug-in premium brand when measured by the share of its total sales volume.  

“The XC40 PHEV accounts for a significant part of this global growth and early local interest suggests this model will make up a solid proportion of our New Zealand EV/hybrid sales this year,” he says. 

The Recharge PHEV’s lab-tested fuel economy is 2.2 litres per 100km compared to the petrol-only XC40s range between 7.7 and 8.0L/100km. However, fuel consumption drops to zero when the electric motor is used alone - with a 44km range.

Customer deliveries are expected to commence from the second half of the year.

By the time the C40 Recharge hits NZ showrooms the XC40 will also be available in a fully electric format. 

The fully electric XC40 – also called a Recharge model - and the C40 appear destined to have a common drivetrain, according to detail so far released by Volvo.  

Both cars are cited to pack 300kW from two motors that will power all four wheels and have a 78kWh battery that can charge to 80 percent on a fast charger in 40 minutes. The fully electric XC40 is expected to deliver 350-400kms in the real world whereas the C40 is cited as being able to clock 420kms before need for replenishment.

Potential for the C40 and XC40 to clash for consumer consideration seems probable, given the new car’s styling direction. Montgomery reckons the C40 will build on the XC40’s popularity. He suggests it is aimed at a younger demographic but also notes it delivers “all the benefits of an SUV but with a lower and sleeker design.” 

The C40 is being called the first Volvo production car that has been wholly designed to take just an electric powertrain.

That claim ignores that a Volvo adjunct, Polestar, already has two electric cars in production. Polestar has so far focused on left hand drive markets, but its latest product will go into right-hand drive his year and Volvo NZ has indicated desire to sell that model here, again with 2022 being the likely launch timing.

Volvo says it is trying to capitalise on growing demand for electric cars, including in China, which is already one of its biggest markets. It also acknowledges that carmakers cannot ignore pressure from governments around the world to beef up their electric car plans.

New cars and vans powered wholly by petrol and diesel will not be sold in the UK from 2030, for example.

Volvo's chief technology officer, Henrik Green, said the company needed to switch focus: "There is no long-term future for cars with an internal combustion engine."

Bjorn Annwall, head of Europe for Volvo, says the plan fits with both Volvo's image and commercial interests.

“At Volvo our customers expect high levels of us when it comes to human safety and they are starting to expect exactly the same thing when it comes to planetary safety, we aim to live up to that, it's the right thing to do,” he told the BBC.

“The fully electric premium segment will be the fastest growing part of the automotive market, so it's very natural to focus on that.”

Volvo will not be investing in cars with hydrogen fuel cells, as it does not think there will be enough demand from customers. There is also a question mark over hydrogen's availability in comparison with charging points for electric cars, a spokesman said.

Last month, Volvo abandoned plans to merge with Chinese car giant Geely. But the two companies said that they would form a partnership instead to make components for electric cars that would be used by both firms.

Geely already has an electric car brand, Lynk and Co, whose product bases off Volvo underpinnings. So car Lynk and Co has restricted to left hand drive but it has not discounted re-engineering for right-hand drive markets to further enhance exports potentials, as other Chinese makes are now doing.

The XC40 Recharge PHEV has already travelled to Auckland dealerships. The remaining visits are to: Duncan and Ebbett, Tauranga on March 13-14; Duncan and Ebbett, Hamilton, March 20-21; Bayswater European, Napier. April 10-11; Armstrong’s Wellington, April 17-18; Archibald’s Christchurch, April 24-26 and Armstrong’s Dunedin, May 8-9.

Big power play from Volvo this year

Diesel is departing and battery-influenced drivetrains are the future for the Swedish premium make here in 2021; including their first fully electric car.

The XC40 Recharge is the first Volvo electric for New Zealand.

WITHIN eight months Volvo here will release the first of a family of cars on which its future depends and have farewelled a fuel type that presently accounts for 50 percent of sales of a core popular sports utility.

The newcomer is – obviously – the make’s first full electric model, a version of the XC40 compact crossover.

Already available in its priority right-hand-drive market, the United Kingdom, but likely to come here around August-September, the XC40 Recharge packs 300kW from two motors that will power all four wheels.  

A 78kWh battery that can charge to 80 percent on a fast charger in 40 minutes is expected to deliver 350-400kms in the real world. 

The model is the only fully electric Volvo set to be available here this year, but assuredly the Geely-owned Swedish brand’s local range is in for a series of shock treatments as the distributor comes up to speed with the make’s global electrification strategy.

Volvo Cars was the first established car maker to commit to all-out electrification and is the only brand to offer a plug-in hybrid variant on every model in its line-up.

By 2025 the company aims to have sold one million electrified cars and it will launch five fully electric models between 2021 and 2025.

For New Zealand, this means additional mild hybrids and plug-in hybrids with the make’s latest efficiency-oriented battery-supported petrol engines are to roll in. Some would already be here, had not it been for delays in stock delivery caused by Covid-19.

Anyway, as Volvo NZ increases this battery push, it will also decrease its count of vehicles that are wholly fossil fuel-reliant; the ultimate aim being to expunge these entirely in favour of powertrains that will feature some form of electrification.

First to depart will be diesel models; all going to plan, says Volvo New Zealand boss Coby Duggan, combustion ignition powertrains will be removed from all Volvo models offered in NZ from as early as mid-2021, replaced by MY2022 mild hybrid petrols.

 It’s a determination the brand acknowledges carries some risk locally, because diesel has been a popular choice, not least in its largest sports utility, the XC90.

In 2020, half of all examples of this seven-seater sold were with diesel. That powertrain choice also offers in the next-size down XC60 and the V90 Crosscountry wagon. Diesel has never offered in the XC40.

However, the XC90 is by far the strongest diesel performer. Volvo NZ is confident it can achieve consumer swing away from the black stuff, however, and has already started this hearts and minds campaign by introducing an XC90 petrol in the same spec, and for the same money, as the XC90 diesel that has been doing well.

“Once we can offer MY2022 mild hybrid XC60 and XC90 (we will no longer offer any diesel in the range. That’s quite a significant shift for us. 

“I’m relaxed about phasing it out in XC60 product as it is has not accounted for much there but it’s different with XC90, as it has generated quite a lot of volume. This year, it has given us, in round terms, around 50 percent of XC90 volume.”

He wonders if a lot of that interest comes down diesel being at an entry level price point. The new petrol tests this.

“What we’ve started doing now is to introduce a T6 petrol at the same price point, and thus create a petrol entry point we have not had before. It’s a way for use to test whether the loyalty to diesel has been about torque, and economy and towing and all the things Kiwis say they love about diesels or whether the price point is also a key contributor.”

Volvo’s ultimate plan, at least until it can create more fully electric models, is to increasingly proliferate the hybrid powertrains it has in readiness that supersede those it has offered in the past.

The mild-hybrid technology pairs a turbocharged petrol engine to a 48-volt battery and an integrated starter-generator (ISG) unit – a compact electric motor replacing a car's traditional starter motor and alternator – to both sharpen engine response at low speeds thanks to a boost from the electrical system, while also, crucially, improving fuel economy. 

Volvo has struggled to build enough mild hybrid, PHEV and full electric cars in 2020

The battery is then recharged through regenerative braking, which recuperates energy 'lost' under deceleration, and not requiring the system to be externally recharged via a plug. 

The ISG also allows for quicker activation of the start-stop system when taking off from a standstill.

Above that option will be a range of improved plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrains – also badged under the Recharge sub-brand that identifies full electrics – which pair a turbo petrol engine with a larger lithium-ion battery pack and a more powerful electric motor, enabling them to drive on electric power alone for distances up to 50km.

Volvo already offers a plug-in hybrid option on the S60 and V60, plus the XC90 Recharge, but additional PHEV options at different price points and performance levels are anticipated for introduction, the next arriving being a PHEV XC40. Whereas the other PHEV cars have a T8 designation, this one will be a T5.

“The XC40 plug-in will be here in the first half of the year, with a 1.5-litre three-cylinder engine with an electric motor, and that will complete the plug-in hybrid lineup.

“The mild hybrid lineup will start to come in the second part of the year, as Model Year 2022 cars, with the 48 volt system. This will be in the 60s and 90s models but not in the 40s until the following model year.”

“The tricky thing for us has been around timing,” Duggan says. “It has taken longer than I personally expected for this technology to get to this part of the world.”

Is this entirely due to Covid-19? There’s no doubt coronavirus has hurt the entire car industry and Volvo hasn’t been immune by any means in 2020.

Says Duggan: “Supply and meeting demand has been incredibly difficult for everyone in every industry, but the plug-in product has been the most difficult for us to lay hands on and it’s likely that will continue into 2021.”

 What also hurts NZ is its size and geographic location – we’re very much at the far end of the supply chain – our modest volume requirement and that other markets in which emissions regulations are more rigorously enforced, and where penalties and rewards apply, have been given higher priority.

“We’re hoping that as production capacity ramps up again we can secure as many (vehicles) as we need … at the moment the only thing that will hold us back in respect to plug-in volumes in particular is ability to supply; the demand is there.”

Volvo Sweden’s electric motivation has also been reinforced by the factory announcing that it will invest around $NZ110 million to set up its own in-house manufacturing of motors for electric cars. 

This programme will see it equip its existing powertrain plant in Skovde, Sweden, to assemble and eventually manufacture e-motors before the middle of the decade.

While other car companies rely on outsourcing parts for electric powertrains, Volvo will follow in the footsteps of Tesla by bringing at least some of these operations in-house.

The new chapter of change for Volvo here also affects its management. Duggan is leaving the brand on January 15, to start a new role with Toyota New Zealand that’ll keep him in Auckland; a return to a familiar territory as he has held a previous role with Lexus. His replacement is Ben Montgomery, who has been with Volvo briefly previously and has subsequently held roles with Renault, Jaguar and Land Rover.

Volvo slowdown hasn’t revved up customers

Safety-first Swede’s speed restriction is worth talking about, right? Erm….

Volvo’s current speed kings, the just-landed S60 and V60 T88s, are hit hardest by the reduction

 IN the 48 hours since the parent brand announced intent to speed limit its cars to 180kmh, Volvo’s local distributor has been inundated with inquiry about how to secure faster fare still in stock.

Actually, that’s a fib.

A run on the quicker cars hasn’t happened and care to guess how owners have reacted?

Answer: So far … with silence.

Admits Volvo Cars New Zealand boss Coby Duggan: “We haven’t received any customer feedback in relation to the speed cap as yet.” 

Does this surprise? Not entirely. The Volvo owner persona isn’t so performance-fixated these days.

“I’m yet to come across a Volvo customer who had ‘top speed’ on their list of key purchasing criteria.”

Even though it was first signalled a year ago, and regardless that Volvo has an especially high status for being safety aware, the impact of Gothenburg having now implemented a determination for all new Volvo cars to be pulled back to a peak 180kmh and be tweaked to further restrict their top speeds using a programmable key, an initiative called Key Care is bold.

coby duggan: if you want a faster Volvo, call him soon.

The new top speed is about 50-70kmh slower than the same cars can achieve now.

Sweden has acknowledged that a world-first statement no other car maker has dared make has proven “controversial”, but it is standing by its attitude that this is a core element of its plans to work toward its vision of a future with zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries in all new Volvo cars globally.

“We believe that a car maker has a responsibility to help improve traffic safety,” said Malin Ekholm, head of the Volvo Cars Safety Centre, during this week’s announcement. Volvo had “an obligation to continue its tradition of being a pioneer in the discussion around the rights and obligations of car makers to take action that can ultimately save lives.” 

"The speed cap and Care Key help people reflect and realise that speeding is dangerous.” 

All Volvos sold here carry the highest (five star) crash test scores given by Australasian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP), the only independent tester recognised by the New Zealand Government, which art-funds the Melbourne-based testing organisation.

Currently, the most recent models to be introduced locally, the S60 sedan and its sister V60 wagon in T8 plug-in hybrid format, stand as the brand’s fastest cars in production, with a top speed of 250kmh.

Volvo cites that the speed cap will implement across all cars for ‘Model Year 2021’, but as that period actually begins in 2020 basically it means local customers should assume any new car ordered from the factory from now onwards will potentially have the limit.

last of the fast: the V60 T8

Says Duggan: “While there have been some COVID-related delays to the model year change, we expect to land the first of these in September and October. 

While the S60 and V60 T8 “are among our most recent arrivals, the intention was always for the speed cap to be applied across the range at the same time rather than in a more staggered manner, hence the MY21 roll-out.”

 The implementation isn’t retrospective, and chances are some cars here already will be available for sale beyond the point when speed-limited equivalents arrive.

“We’re in pretty good shape in terms of stock (without the speed cap) – both quantity and model mix – to carry us through to the arrival (of cars with the speed cap).

“While forecasting retail run rates is a tricky proposition in the current environment – for everyone - I don’t expect the speed cap in itself to have any impact on demand.”

There’s also expected to be strong interest in Care Key, an alternate physical car key which allows owners to set their own speed limits, "before lending their car to other family members or to younger and inexperienced drivers," Volvo has explained.

The cars will recognise when it is being unlocked by the Care Key and automatically implement a limited top speed of the owner's choosing. 

The Auckland-domiciled distributor has already considered what might happen were any future owners to conspire to over-ride the factory’s speed-restriction measures.

“We don’t believe the speed cap can be overridden and even if it was technically possible to do so it’s certainly not a service Volvo NZ or our authorised network would offer,” said Duggan.

He offered no response on whether tampering would impact on a car’s warranty, though generally implementation of any performance-altering software on new cars often does void the factory cover.

Future-looking Volvos coming, ready or not

The next XC90 coming here is designed to carry a feature considered the key to unlocking fully automated driving.

How Lidar sees the world.

THE next generation of a Volvo car strongly supported by Kiwis will avail within three years with technology crucial to enabling safe automated driving – but whether it can be used effectively here then is far from certain.

The Swedish car brand’s local distributor has confirmed it is line for the next XC90, a large seven-seater luxury sports utility, debuting an advanced self-driving suite using lidar.

Lidar is a radar that – as the acronym suggests – uses light detection and ranging to measures distance using pulsed laser light to generate a highly accurate 3D map of the world around the car. 

Lidar sensors are considered by many automakers and tech companies an essential piece of technology to safely roll out autonomous vehicles.

Because? Just like human-driven cars, vehicles enacting autonomously must face traffic congestion, potholes, trees and numerous other obstacles. Lidar is the technology that works as an ‘eye’ and to opportune accuracy gains far beyond the level from existing radar and camera technology that’s already in operation and increasingly commonplace, especially in luxury brands.

With Lidar Volvo is promising it will deliver fully autonomous vehicles which can navigate highways. With the emphasis on the last word. This is not designed to enable full-time hands-off driving in any other scenario. City streets, country roads, carparks, your driveway, the beach … no, too hard. There will still be a steering wheel, still the need for a driver.

Volvo has been at the forefront with its highway pilot system, which in current form uses radar, cameras and software to read road conditions well enough to be a semi-autonomous aid. It fits as standard to most product now.

However, the new system, developed with a highly secretive Silicon Valley start-up, Luminar, is a significant world-first step beyond that ability, Volvo New Zealand general manager Coby Duggan says.

What’s unveiled now potentially feeds off a trial Volvo conducted on part of Tauranga’s motorway back in 2016 that became first official trial of an autonomous driving system in this country in real world conditions.

In that test, the trial car – also an XC90, but the current model – used a more sophisticated version of the self-drive technology presently available in production models to navigate the road.

Driver intervention was minimal, only required to u-turn at the halfway point of the 15km journey. What impressed onlookers and trial partners the Ministry of Transport, NZTA, Trafinz and the maker was how the car operated seamlessly and safely alongside other vehicles.

At that time the smarts were just in Beta form – the car had to be smartened with software brought in from Sweden (on a memory stick), with an expert from Gothenburg head office to operate it.

Much progress has since occurred with the ‘Drive Me’ development programme, including an initiative in Sweden that saw 100 families testing fully autonomous vehicles on public roads. 

Now comes the overnight announcement of the lidar integration being set for production. 

Volvo, whose parent is Chinese giant Geely, says this latest advance will be part of a hardware package for vehicles on its second-generation of the Scalable Product Architecture that underpins all current models.

Coby Duggan

That programme kicks off with the next XC90, which Duggan says is set to avail here in late 2023, a year after international release.

Volvo’s confidence in the new system is such it has immediately assured it will take full liability should anything go wrong.

It says the lidar package might initially start out an option, but will eventually become a standard feature.

Either way, Duggan says it is probable all new XC90s will carry the core electronic elements – and presumably at least the lidar housing - regardless of how prepared export markets are for automated driving.

Luminar and Volvo have not revealed how much this version of highway pilot might cost. Luminar has previously said its Iris lidar unit will cost less than $NZ1600 per unit for production vehicles seeking full autonomy and about $NZ800 for version used for more limited purposes like driver assistance.

Will New Zealand be ready for this? Hard to say. Realistically, it would likely only prove useful on motorways built to latest design standard and in perfect order; as Tauranga’s was. Roadworks, congestion, confusing markings … these remain a challenge even for tech in its most advanced form.

All the same, from a legislative perspective, NZ is well-placed for the ‘if’ and ‘ when’ of autonomous driving and there seems to be a healthy consumer interest in hands-free driving.

“So, yeah, I think we are getting there. Yes, we still need to understand more about what needs to happen in infrastructure terms to make sure the cars are able to perform as they are intended to.

“Yet we’ve always said the NZ is quite open to this and is receptive to an uptake of new tech.

“From a legislative perspective it is well prepared and NZ customers certainly seem to be keen to explore what’s available. But I also think the condition of the roads will also be pretty critical and there’s probably lots of work yet to be done in that respect.”

Of course, NZ standing out as a particularly tasty test site for real world AI driving only carries so much currency - the reality remains that ours is a small country so generally has to wait its turn.”

Current XC90 is a top seller for Volvo NZ

In some respects, it’s no different to where NZ finds itself with electric vehicles; makers appreciate our high level of renewable energy and identify the infrastructure is reasonably good, yet still have to give bigger markets priority.

“In some respects it would be nice to think we could be at the forefront but the reality is … we won’t necessarily be landing those cars first.”

Even so, in broad terms and regardless that it’s too early to unwrap where we place in Volvo’s planning, the tech is great to see and he anticipates his office and the sales network will receive plenty of customer inquiry.

It’s going to be a learning experience for everyone. “The more that we know about the technology in advance of the car arriving then the more we can start that education process.”

It’s not as if owners will be going in cold. Current Volvos are, like most modern luxury cars, equipped to engage semi-autonomous hands-off operation in specific conditions and for short duration.

“The notion of autonomous driving in the first instance is about making the most boring and the most unsafe aspects of driving safer and more convenient. There is obviously a piece of that depending on the infrastructure being what it needs to be, but obviously this (new) tech takes it forward.”

Volvo is hardly first to seek to adopt Lidar; the advancement here is as much as anything else in the packaging of a system that sends out thousands of laser pulses every second, these colliding with the surrounding objects and reflecting back to create a 3D point cloud. An onboard computer records each laser’s reflection point and translates this rapidly updating point cloud into an animated 3D representation. What has kept lidar off cars is cost and the ungainliness of the set-up: Who wants a car with a bucket-sized rotating device – requisite for a 360 degree view - installed on the roof or bonnet?

Luminar’s sensors are sited within the car’s roofline.

Well, no-one. Luminar’s solution is to forgo looking anywhere but ahead. So it’s sensors are fixed in place with a 120-degree horizontal field of view. This allows Volvo plans to integrate Luminar's iris sensors into the car's roof just above the windshield, where it will have a good view of the road ahead of the vehicle. The whole thing is really compact, about the size of really thick sandwich.

Luminar CEO Austin Russell says the announcement also represents years of work bringing down the cost of its technology. Luminar's technology is built around a relatively exotic type of laser operating at 1550nm. The fluid in the human eye is opaque to light at this frequency, allowing lidars to use higher power levels without running afoul of eye safety regulations. That helps Luminar's lidar achieve an impressive 250-metre range. 

The downside is that transmitting and receiving a 1550nm laser light requires the use of unusual and expensive semiconductor materials like indium-gallium arsenide (yeah, we also hope that one never comes up on The Chase). That's in contrast to conventional 905nm lidar systems that can be made using ubiquitous silicon-based components.

The perception software equally crucial to making it all work is still under development. The aim is to activate it wirelessly once it is verified to be safe in individual geographic locations. Volvo says it will continue to expand the capability of the software such as pushing up the maximum speed a vehicle can travel while driving autonomously. But it enforces this is primarily for highways. 

Even so, that’s a big step. And, yes, over time, updates over the air will expand the areas in which the car can drive itself. But Luminar enforces a safe introduction of autonomy is a gradual introduction – quite a different message, then, than we’ve heard from a certain someone in the electric car business.

Luminar’s Lidar packaging is a breakthrough