The Swedish automaker, Volvo, unveiled a new concept electric car at a recent Tech Day event held on Wednesday. The vehicle is being dubbed as “Concept Recharge” and seems like a compact SUV.
Concept Recharge will be built on a new platform dedicated to the second generation of full-electric vehicles. The first generation of Volvo’s electric cars was underpinned by the same platform used for its ICE cars.
However, the second generation is for EVs only, thus, have flat floors, an extended wheelbase, and more space inside the cabin.
Anyway, coming back to Concept Recharge, it has the mantra of ‘less but better’ at its core, the automaker said.
Inspired by Scandinavian mythology, the headlights of this EV are adapted from the design of Thor’s Hammer.
The concept EV features unique doors which Volvo is calling ‘suicide doors’ to provide a spacious interior. However, these won’t likely be carried on to the production model.
Henrik Green, CTO at Volvo, told the Verge that a version of the Concept Recharge could become a reality within three years — excluding the dramatic suicide doors, unfortunately.
Apart from this, the Swedish automaker also announced that it’s planning to go all-electric by the end of 2030.
Volvo Presents Future Plans: New Electric Car, Autonomous Tech, And More
Currently, the automaker is selling only one fully electric vehicle, XC40 Recharge. Two new EVs, C40 Recharger and an electric SUV XC90 are under construction; however, Volvo plans to bring the former by the end of this year and the latter sometime in 2022.
Later on, Concept Recharge will come into play and as mentioned will take almost 3 to 4 years to hit the market.
Moreover, the carmaker aims to sell 600,000 EVs till it reaches the mid-decade.
600+ Miles EVs
If we believe the sources, Volvo is collaborating with a Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt to develop high-energy-density batteries.
These batteries will be capable of providing up to 625 miles (1,006 km) of range and faster charging times. The automaker is also planning to establish a battery manufacturing facility in Europe by 2026.
There it’ll work with Northvolt to design and manufacture new generation battery cells.
Volvo Is Betting Big On Autonomous Driving Tech
Volvo is famous for making some of the safest cars in the world. However, the automaker now thinks that it’s the technology that attracts the most and could be a bigger sales driver.
Mr. Henrik Green said, “People are actually buying a car because it has Android infotainment system, and it works seamlessly with your phone or ecosystem.”
Plus, we know the ever-evolving development in autonomous driving tech. Hence, the company is thinking more like Tesla and self-driving technology.
Volvo is planning to equip its cars with Lidar laser sensors to initiate its process of becoming autonomous vehicles. Lidar sensors help in hands-free highway driving, but of course, it would require constant driver’s attention and also some extra bucks.
At present, irrespective of the brand, the driver must pay attention while using the driver assistance system. For reference, in the case of Tesla Autopilot, the driver has to keep their hands-on wheels. Similarly, Ford uses a system that focuses on the driver’s eyes to determine if the driver is paying attention or not.
Moving ahead, The Swedish auto giant will also bring the new operating system, Volvo.OS, to power the new generation of its EVs.
Anyway, these were some of the updates and plans of the Volvo. We hope Volvo would be able to achieve all of its targets by the end of this decade.
Source: Volvo Cars
