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Electronics Production |
Volvo Cars to triple electric production capacity in Ghent
Volvo Cars says its tripling electric car manufacturing capacity at its plant in Ghent, Belgium as it prepares to meet fast growing demand for its Recharge line-up of chargeable cars.
The capacity increase comes as Volvo Cars also reports its full-year sales results for 2020, which showed a strong growth in demand for the company’s Recharge models. The share of Recharge cars as a percentage of total sales more than doubled in 2020, compared to 2019.
By 2022, electric car capacity at the Ghent plant will have more than tripled from today’s levels and amount to around 60% of the plant’s total production capacity.
Ghent is currently preparing to take a second fully electric Volvo model, based on the CMA modular vehicle architecture, into production later this year. The plant already builds the XC40 Recharge, which is the company’s first fully electric car, as well as a plug-in hybrid version of the XC40.
“Our future is electric and customers clearly like what they see from our Recharge cars,” says Javier Varela, head of global industrial operations and quality, in a press release. “As we continue to electrify our line-up and boost our electric production capacity, Ghent is a real trailblazer for our global manufacturing network.”
Volvo Cars has a goal which states that by 2025 its global sales will consist of 50% fully electric cars, with the rest hybrids.
While Ghent is the first of its global manufacturing network to start building fully electric cars, the company also has plans to increase electric car manufacturing capacity at its other facilities.
Last month, Volvo Cars also announced it will assemble electric motors at its powertrain plant in Skövde, Sweden, and plans to establish complete in-house e-motor production by mid-decade. It will invest SEK 700 million (EUR 69.5 million) to this end in coming years.
