Volvo is upgrading its plant in Ghent, Belgium, to prepare for increased demand for electric vehicles.
The automaker plans to triple the current capacity for EVs at the plant by 2022, it said Thursday.
The plant is where Volvo builds the XC40, including the XC40 Recharge battery-electric variant.
2021 Volvo XC40 Recharge goes into production
Starting later this year, a second EV will enter production at the plant. The debut will take place in March.
All Volvo has said about the second EV is that it will ride on the CMA modular platform for compact cars, found in the full XC40 range as well as the Polestar 2.
The XC40 Recharge is available in the United States with a starting price of $53,990. It has a 78-kilowatt-hour battery good for 208 miles of range as rated by the EPA. The second EV will probably have similar numbers.
2021 Volvo XC40 Recharge
Volvo will eventually build EVs at other plants, including potentially at its plant in Charleston, South Carolina. By 2025, the automaker expects half its sales to be made up by EVs, with the rest plug-in hybrids. It's closest to that target in Europe where in 2020 almost 30% of Volvo's sales were made up by EVs and plug-in hybrids.
Last November, Volvo opened an electric motor R&D center in China. The move was in preparation for moving all of its electric motor production in-house by the same 2025 date. Volvo is already building some electric motors at a plant in Sweden.
Volvo sold 661,713 vehicles worldwide in 2020, a decline of 6.2% compared to 2019.
