Volvo Will Only Sell Electric Vehicles in Australia by 2026

Swedish brand Volvo has announced that it is going all-electric by 2026. As reported by Wheels, the announcement means that the carmaker will not launch another petrol vehicle in Australia, instead committing to only releasing electric vehicles from here on out. It ties into the launch of the Volvo C40 in Australia, the first car in Volvo’s range that will not go to market with a petrol version on offer. It’s expected that the C40 will be on Australian roads in 2023. Volvo originally said that it would go all-electric internationally by 2030. This new announcement means that, in Australia at least, the brand is shifting to EVs four years early. Hybrids will also be phased out.

Volvo Australia is going all electric by 2026, 4 years ahead of their global target!

"There is no long-term future for cars with an internal combustion engine. So instead of investing in a shrinking business, we choose to invest in the future, which is fully electric" https://t.co/jIkGO4ey8F

— Behyad Jafari (@BJafari) November 3, 2022

“We’ve agreed on a local level in Australia that we’re not going to wait for 2030. I’ve put a proposal to Gothenburg the other day and we will be fully electric by 2026 in Australia,” Stephen Connor, the managing director of Volvo Australia, said at the Australian launch for the Volvo C40, as reported by Wheels. “My personal opinion is the market will be crowded by 2030. The acceleration of change is happening so fast that it will actually only get faster. If we wait until 2030, we’ll lose the march on our competitors; I think we’ll lose market share. If we go for 2026, we will gain market share and get the early adopters,” Connor later told Wheels. So, there you have it. Volvo is going to be one of the first petrol vehicle brands to go all-electric in Australia. Volvo is also the owner of Polestar, Volvo’s own electric vehicle performance brand (both owned by Chinese company Geely), so it’ll be in good company once it stops selling petrol vehicles.

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