LOS ANGELES — Volvo Cars will create an electric version of its next XC90 and build it at its plant near Charleston, S.C., in 2022, CEO Hakan Samuelsson told Automotive News last week. It will be the first electric Volvo to be American made and is expected to be the brand’s third battery-powered model.
Starting as soon as the second quarter of 2022, the plant will become the global production center for the third-generation XC90 flagship crossover. It will be built on the next version of Volvo’s Scalable Product Architecture platform, referred to as SPA2. It’s not clear how much of XC90 production at the $1.1 billion South Carolina plant will be devoted to the battery-electric variant.