Volvo small EV will be key part of electric push

Volvo Cars confirmed it will build a small electric car, which will be a crucial part of its effort to get half of its global sales from battery-powered vehicles by 2025.

The model will use the recently revealed Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA) that the Swedish automaker helped parent Zhejiang Geely Holding develop.

Volvo is launching one electric car each year starting in 2020 with the XC40 Recharge. The automaker has not revealed the full cadence of those debuts, although CEO Hakan Samuelsson said last year the full-electric version of the new XC90 flagship crossover is slated to arrived in 2022.

That leaves 2021 as a possibility for Volvo’s version of the small EV because Lynk & CO, a joint venture between Volvo and Geely Automotive, has said its SEA-based car, the production version of Zero Concept, will be launched next year.

The SEA underpinnings will be used by other Geely-controlled brands including Polestar, Lotus, and London taxi maker LEVC.

Volvo’s SEA-based model is expected to be a crossover, based on comments Samuelsson gave to UK motoring magazine Auto Express. The CEO, however, declined to define the "Baby Volvo" as a crossover or SUV.

"I think the SUVs in the future might not be exactly as SUVs are today," Samuelsson told the publication. "Ground clearance and off-roading capability are probably not the most important things now."

Samuelsson also explained why Volvo opted for SEA rather than expand the usage of the Compact Module Architecture it co-developed with Geely Holding.

“It's difficult to push the CMA platform, which is a combination platform for EVs and combustion-engine cars, further down. So if you want to do a smaller car than XC40 then SEA can do it. We will use it for that," he told Auto Express.

Geely Holding joins a growing number of automakers that will have electric-only architectures. Volkswagen Group’s MEB underpins models such as the recently launched ID3 compact and forthcoming ID4 compact crossover.

Daimler said Tuesday it will start producing models next year on its new Electric Vehicle Architecture for large cars, starting with the EQS sedan and followed by an EQE sedan and the EQS and EQE crossovers. Daimler says the models build on the new architecture will have ranges of up to 435 miles.

Geely Holding says SEA-based cars will have ranges of more than 435 miles, adding that the architecture covers everything from small cars to light commercial vehicles.

SEA was developed over the last three years at R&D centers in China, Sweden, the UK and Germany.

Geely President An Conghui said the company spent 18 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) on R&D for SEA, which the automaker has starting talked with other automakers about sharing. Geely is building a car plant of its own using the EV architecture, construction documents on the automaker’s website show.

Reuters contributed to this report