Volvo says its first all-electric vehicle is coming in 2019 with battery packs up to 100 kWh

While Swedish automaker Volvo says that it is committed to the electrification of its vehicle lineup, we haven’t heard much about its plans beyond the announcement in 2015 that they are working on a new EV platform for 2019.

But this week at the SAE 2017 Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Technologies Symposium in San Diego, the company reaffirmed that the first all-electric Volvo car will be available in 2019 and confirmed that the platform could support battery packs up to 100 kWh.

The vehicle will be the first all-electric from the automaker and third plug-in since it already sells the XC90 and it plans to bring another PHEV to market next year, according to Mats Anderson, Senior Director of Electric Propulsion Systems at Volvo.

But we are more interested in the new all-electric platform.

Reporting on Anderson speaking at the symposium, Green Car Congress wrote:

To enable the cost-effective production of a range of BEVs meeting different requirements, Volvo is developing the Modular Electrification Platform (MEP)—a set of modular building blocks for electrification than will allow Volvo to deliver vehicles ranging between 100 – 450 kW of propulsive power, with battery packs of up to 100 kWh in size.

A 100 kWh battery pack can enable over 300 miles of range depending on the efficiency of the vehicle. It’s likely to be only a high-end option, like Tesla currently offers in the Model S and X. Smaller battery packs are often sufficient for most use cases.

It’s not clear what will be the first vehicle on this electric platform, but Volvo unveiled last year two new concepts that the company claimed at the time could both be built on it: Concepts 40.1 (SUV) and 40.2 (sedan):

Volvo’s plug-in XC90 has been generally well-received and has been competing well in some markets against Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Hopefully, the automaker can build on that success for its first all-electric vehicle.

The company plans to accumulate a global fleet of “up to 1 million electrified cars by 2025 globally”.