Much hoopla greeted Volvo鈥檚 pledge to stop making vehicles powered only by petrol or diesel. Across the internet, its 鈥渉istoric鈥� claim was dutifully repeated. Some whether it might save the planet. paused to consider if it was all just PR.
Let鈥檚 be clear. is that, within two years, any new Volvo will be at least partly electric powered. From 2019, all its range will have an electric motor of some form, either mild hybrids, which engage battery propulsion in limited circumstances like pulling away, or plug-in hybrids, which team a combustion engine with an electric unit that can be recharged from the mains. By 2021, the company will also roll out five fully electrified models.
So it is true that all future Volvos will be part electric. But it is also true that most will continue to have an internal combustion engine. And the fuel efficiency gains of mild hybrids are usually meagre for anything other than urban driving.
Advertisement
The Swedish car-maker鈥檚 move looks to be more about playing catch-up than leading a revolution. Toyota grabbed much of the global market for hybrids with the Prius, which it launched in 2000 as the first mass-produced vehicle of its kind. Meanwhile, the likes of BMW, General Motors and Renault-Nissan are already taking a significant share of the electrified car market, both with plug-in hybrids and all-electric options.
A real revolution would be a legacy car brand vowing to ditch internal combustion altogether by 2019. To be fair to Volvo, pledging that would spell commercial suicide. Its reputation is built on providing reliable, safe, practical 鈥� and some high-end 鈥� cars to Europe, the US and China, where consumers are increasingly drawn to hybrids amid air pollution concerns and the diesel emissions scandal. Even the most environmentally savvy are unlikely to choose all-electric because of 鈥渞ange anxiety鈥� and a lack of public charging points or off-street parking to enable easy home charging.
Mass-market crown
That isn鈥檛 to say the future isn鈥檛 electric. The crowning glory will go to the car-maker that produces an all-electric vehicle that sells far and wide, just like the Prius has in the hybrid market. Was it just coincidence that around the time of Volvo鈥檚 announcement, luxury US car-maker Tesla, which deals solely in all-electric engines, launched its bid for that mass-market crown? It announced that its first affordable vehicle, the Model 3, which costs about the same as some Ford Focus models, was rolling off production lines.
Meanwhile, Toyota 鈥� the world鈥檚 biggest car-maker 鈥� has shifted gear to focus on an electric car that promises to be the most environmentally sound on the road. With a hydrogen-powered fuel cell to charge its electric engine, the Toyota Mirai went on sale in 2015 and boasts water vapour as its sole emission. There are almost 3000 in use worldwide.
The Tesla Model 3 and Mirai developments are worthy of fanfare. But no matter how sophisticated the technologies, neither electric nor fuel-cell electric cars will take off without supporting infrastructure. The UK, for example, has just a handful of hydrogen fueling stations. nationwide to make such cars a viable consumer option.
Offering subsidies to those buying electric cars isn鈥檛 enough. Governments must radically rethink how they invest in green transport infrastructure. Only then will we finally be able to free ourselves of a 19th-century technology in a 21st-century world.
