Volvo Car Group and Swedish company Northvolt will build a jointly owned factory to produce eco-friendly battery cells for all-electric Volvo and Polestar models.
According to the plan, the car company will build an EV research center in 2022 and launch a factory four years later. The factory will produce 50 Gigawatt-hours of batteries per year and employ 3,000 people. Its location remains to be decided upon, but Volvo says it is going to be in Europe.
In around three years from that moment, the XC60 SUV should be the first production car to go all-electric. By the beginning of the next decade, the company expects to have only electric cars on its lineup. As of right now, the XC60 PHEV pictured on the photos here is the company’s most electrified vehicle.
With a large, flat traction battery and two motors mounted one per axle via reduction gear, the new platform will lend itself perfecty to battery cars, the company says. Right now, the C40 Recharge model unveiled this spring is Volvo’s only EV designed from the ground up as such.