All-electric Volvo XC40 SUV to debut this year, report says

Volvo’s all-electric XC40 compact SUV will debut later this year, and should be on the road by 2020, according to a new report.

The all-electric version of the XC40 will be introduced “before the end of the year,” according to Automotive News Europe.

The upcoming XC40 variant, which we reported on back in February 2018, is expected to be Volvo Car Group’s first all-electric vehicle under its Volvo brand name. The company’s Polestar brand officially introduced its first all-electric car, the Polestar 2, in February.

The Polestar 2, which is being directly positioned as a Tesla Model 3 competitor, is also expected to hit the road in 2020. Production for that car will start early next year, but it’s unclear when exactly in 2020 both cars will hit the market.

The Automotive News Europe report notes that both the all-electric XC40 and Polestar 2 will use Volvo’s Compact Modular Architecture (CMA) that the company developed with China’s Geely. (Last week, Geely announced a 50/50 partnership with Daimler to make all-electric Smart cars in China.)

Volvo reportedly has another all-electric SUV on the way as well, under its Polestar brand. The Polestar 3 SUV is expected by 2021. All Polestar cars are expected to be all-electric from the Polestar 2 on, with the brand’s first vehicle, the expensive Polestar 1 plug-in hybrid, as the only exception.

Few other details about the all-electric XC40 were included in the new report beyond the updated timeline. The current ICE XC40 starts at ~$36,000, and we’re curious to see how the electric version will be priced.

Last year, Volvo said it was aiming for 50% of its sales to be “fully electric” by 2025. The company’s website also now says Volvo Car Group will have “five new fully battery electric vehicles” in its lineup by 2021. With that in mind, we should be seeing at a few more all-electric Volvo announcements in the near future.