Volvo unveils new 40 series small car platform with Fully Electric capability

Swedish Car company Volvo has tonight unveiled two new concept cars which set the path for the future of Volvo with ambitions of selling 1 million electrified cars by 2025, the new cars are the next 40 Series small car range.

With a “family” of cars in the 90 Series, 60 Series and 40 Series, Volvo has already made huge advances in design and technology with the most recent XC90.  This concept car range shows off a new design overall, as well as a new platform approach that assists in the company’s overall vision for the future of motoring.

Having stated they have ambitions to sell up to 1 million electrified cars by 2015, this 40 Series is an important part of that plan.

The 40 series will be the first built by Volvo on its new “Compact Modular Architecture” (CMA) which is a whole new platform for the vehicle – common for a platform to be relaunched, but the critical thing here is the platform is versatile enough to include both a plug-in-hybrid variant and a fully electric vehicle.

“Our new expanded range of smaller cars will improve and broaden Volvo’s presence in an important and growing market segment in Australia and around the world,” said Kevin McCann, Managing Director of Volvo Car Australia.

“By taking a modular approach to both vehicle architecture and powertrain development we have succeeded in leap-frogging many of the players in the prestige segment,” said Mr McCann.

“Our new battery electric powertrain variant opens yet another exciting chapter in the unfolding Volvo story.”

This is the critical thing, by building a vehicle platform that can be internal combustion, hybrid or fully electric the vehicle become scalable – and critically the company is well equipped for mass-market delivery and mass-production.  Something Telsa is still grappling with.

And the 40 series is no pipe dream, the cars will go into production next year, and are expected to be on sale in Australia late 2017 or early 2018.  That’s a full year ahead of any small electric car from Tesla.

Interesting times, and these are very beautiful futuristic yet not outrageous designs – we can’t wait to see the final design.