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All Volvos to be electric/hybrid

4K views 17 replies 11 participants last post by  Tony1 
#1 ·
Appears that MY19 will be the last lot of pure combustion engines

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40505671

Good news on the one hand, but on the other I wonder if this will bump up the price of entry level models.
 
#2 ·
Sounds interesting. But they did say that they would continue to manufacture the current line up with internal combustion engines, and that future models would be hybrid or all electric.

The current vehicle line up probably has a few years left in it.

I am pretty sure that Volvo's parent company have done some serious sums to prove that the idea is sustainable and worked out how many cars they sell at each price point and would strive to keep costs similar to not lose too much market share.
 
#3 ·
I think it'll be interesting to see. I'll probably be looking to buy another car after 2020/2021 and I'm willing to give electric a look or at the very least hybrid. I think its inevitable that we'll see mostly electric cars of some degree on the roads in the next ten years as the technology has come on massively. Volvo seems to be one of if not the first of the premium car manufacturers to commit to this direction soon. Also I saw a press release from Polestar stating they'll be moving towards engineering electric performance vehicles under the Polestar badge (literally as there won't be a Volvo badge on their vehicles in the future) so this will be interesting to see.

I'll be watching Volvo's progress in this field with great interest.


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#4 ·
Oh, I just can't wait. Lumbering heavyweight tyre shredding overpriced behemoths ever rising in price as rare earth metals become scarce. Thank you EU for insightful emission regs to punish internal combustion engines. I'll stay with my old tech cars thank you.

Note here what AAA has done while Tesla bleat and whine:

http://www.hybridcars.com/aaa-raising-insurance-premiums-for-tesla-owners/

Performance? Here is what a car half the price of Tesla does to it:

 
#5 ·
Oh, I just can't wait. Lumbering heavyweight tyre shredding overpriced behemoths ever rising in price as rare earth metals become scarce. Thank you EU for insightful emission regs to punish internal combustion engines. I'll stay with my old tech cars thank you.

Note here what AAA has done while Tesla bleat and whine:

http://www.hybridcars.com/aaa-raising-insurance-premiums-for-tesla-owners/

Performance? Here is what a car half the price of Tesla does to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfXlxjzbsWU
I think the time is coming when we have to forget old-fashioned notions such as "performance" - the planet is coming to the point where it can no longer afford to indulge our whims. Cars will become means of transport, full stop, not very large toys. Perhaps technological advances will change this picture; for example, better electricity storage technologies and faster recharging. At the moment, lithium (not a rare-earth, by the way, and still plentiful) is the best we have, but it still can't deliver the same overall package as the internal combustion engine.

I applaud Volvo for having the courage to face the inevitable, and I hope that the technological giants of the world will put their minds into improving the energy situation, as opposed to new means of blowing people up. What if the cost of a US supercarrier (or HMS Queen Elizabeth for that matter) were instead put towards energy generation and storage research? The US Apollo project was politically motivated, but it was an astounding technological feat and all with the computing power found in an iPhone. Is it too much to think that such a thing could be done again, and for a need that is much more urgent and relevant than planting a flag on a bit of particularly dead real estate?
 
#6 ·
There's some details of the hybrid system used in the forthcoming CMA platform here:
http://www.autoblog.com/2016/05/19/volvo-new-compact-cars-10-things-featured/
It use a combined motor/starter/generator that's connected into the new twin-clutch gearbox after the clutch by an additional geartrain:


Battery space on the CMA platform is in the transmission tunnel for the hybrid versions:

On the full electric version it takes up the transmission tunnel, fuel tank space under the rear seat and also extends under the floor:

It does mean interior space is going to be compromised though - on the hybrid it looks like there's not going to be much of a centre console.
 
#8 ·
I see it as a final admission that the emissions laws are just not attainable in the present form, and probably were never meant to be, will this mean that the usa manufactures will follow suit !!, of course the cost is going to be higher and in the long run car ownership will get lower, and more controlled it has too, Volvo seem to be the first large manufacturer to put its cards on the table, we will have to see if the other car companies are quite as willing to give advance warning that the cars people are investing in now will be subject to a scrappage order in a few years time.
 
#9 ·
I wonder whether car ownership will be lower, or more precisely, whether society can afford for it to be lower. The days when cars were a luxury for the privileged few are now past; they have become a basic commodity, and with so many jobs directly or indirectly dependent on the industry - not just steel and paint and rubber, but all the other components that go into a modern vehicle - we simply can't afford to have a big reduction in numbers, otherwise a lot of people lose jobs. Meaning that somehow they have to be affordable.
 
#10 ·
I cannot see how electric is going to be of any use at all except as a niche energy source and it appears only to be a flavour of the month. Volvo have hopped onto the 'aren't I green' bandwagon but regrettably they are not green - at all.

A taxpayer funded study (thus not subject to corporate funded bias) in the US found this is so true right up to at least 2030. Read this lengthy article to find out what a disaster electric is -

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/unclean-at-any-speed

Do you want a nuke plant on your doorstep or maybe downwind from a new coal burning plant needed to upgrade the grid? It's a giant dog and pony show and soon it will be politically incorrect to criticise electric.

I admit I am a die hard petrol head. Imagine the electric car motor races and thrill to the sounds of silence.
 
#11 · (Edited)
I think your admitted petrolhead sympathies make you want to see that electric is not going to be mainstream. However, much of what you write (and what's in that article) is true, at least at the moment. But remember the old Chinese proverb that a march of a thousand miles begins with the first step. We have to start somewhere, and, in my opinion, we can't sit back and simply say, "Can't be done" and go back to our polluting, planet-destroying ways. And progress has been made - think of trying to run an electric car on lead-acid batteries, or even NiCad ones. Lithium is a major advance, but we need another quantum leap forward.

If the nuke plant were thermonuclear fusion, there'd be no problem at all. Problem is, controlled fusion always seems 50 years away regardless of when the question is asked. But perhaps one day... And then there's that ultimate thermonuclear fusion plant up in the sky, which produces enough energy every couple of minutes to power everything on the entire planet for a century - we need to collect and store more of that. In the end, we need to stop burning things to produce energy. Pie in the sky? At the moment, yes, but we need to try harder - the future of the planet is at stake.

I personally thrill to close, exciting racing - the noise made in the performance thereof is, to me, totally irrelevant.

P.S. From today's NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
 
#12 ·
I have read and appreciate the previous posts.
I also realise that this is a Volvo/Car orientated forum.
Yes we will lose the diesel/petrol engines for land transport, but I have yet to read what the 'clever greeney guys' propose to power ships and planes.
Any thoughts???
 
#13 ·
Any thoughts???
I'm not particularly greeney but I like the idea of being self-sustaining. The majority of my miles are commuting and my car sits in the drive all night, so an electric car would suit 95% of my needs. I would maybe miss the engine noise but I'd get over it, I'm not driving a Ferrari. I would enjoy the instant torque, quietness and reduced servicing requirements.

I'm not sure about planes but I think electric cargo ships are very likely (especially autonomous), whether sourcing energy from solar or other means.
 
#15 ·
Well, I highly doubt that the end of combustion engines will come in 2019. The big oil companies simply won't let this happen. I am sure that this will not greatly affect the prices of budget models. A prime example is the Prius, which is not that expensive. This topic has already been raised more than once in various forums dedicated to electric vehicles, such as myev.online. I'm sure the combustion engines will last at least another ten years, although I'm really interested in what you think of that. Do not forget that there are still a huge number of problems associated with electric vehicles. For example, their power reserve, as well as the number of charging stations, which are mainly common in large cities. In small towns, there are almost none. Well, let's see what happens after a while. This world is too unpredictable to guess anything for the future ...
 
#16 ·
Not sure why you want to revive a 3 year old post that quotes a 7 year old study.

How do you know where charging stations are in the world? You can now drive from one end of the UK to the other and there are charging stations spaced out well enough to allow you to make that journey.

Different countries are in different places with regard to clean energy. 10 years ago the UK used coal to generate 40% of its power needs, this year we managed to turn off our coal fired power stations for 1 hour short of 68 consecutive days (the first time in 138 years no coal was burnt to generate energy)

We didn't build new nuclear stations, we didn't build new gas fired stations, instead we are using more and more renewables.

The internal combustion engine will probably last longer than the next 10 years, but it is a 100 year old technology, essentially unchanged in all that time. But at the same time most nations and world leaders (with a few notable exceptions) acknowledge climate change is real and a threat to the world. Alternative fuel vehicles aren't the solution, but they can make an impact in reducing global emissions.
 
#17 ·
Just my 2 cents, I believe it will be possible for all pure gasoline/diesel engine powered cars to be banned in 2030 or whenever. However I do believe PHEVs and to a lesser extent hybrids would be around to stay perhaps for another 5 years after that. I mean the Polestar 1 now has a 2.0 engine with a frankly massive for a PHEV 34KWh battery.
 
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