Swedish luxury carmaker, Volvo Cars, is reportedly working on a new compact SUV that will be positioned below the XC40. The new SUV, which is expected to be called the Volvo XC20, will be based on the new electric vehicle (EV) platform developed by its parent company, Geely. This means the car will be an all-electric SUV. It was just in September 2020 that Volvo's Chinese owner introduced the new EV platform - Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA), at the recent Beijing Auto Show. Introducing the platform Geely's President An Conghui had said that the new architecture will support small as well as large vehicles, including sedans, SUVs, vans and pickup trucks.
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Volvo Group CEO, Hakan Samuelsson told Auto Express that the company's engineers are also working on models based on SEA platform and new rumoured compact SUV will be one of them. He said, "We'll use it for a smaller car, where I think it's very practical and smart for us to share that, so we can have a cost structure for a smaller car that's very competitive. It's difficult to push the CMA platform (the XC40's chassis), which is a combination platform for EVs and combustion-engined cars, further down. So, if you want to do a smaller car than XC40 then SEA can do it."
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Geely will develop vehicles based on the SEA architecture under nine brands including Geely, Volvo, Smart and Lynk & Co
Samuelsson said that cars built on the SEA will be premium enough to bear the Volvo badge, and yet because it has been developed in China, it will also be cost-effective. Hinting at the possibility of the new product being an electric SUV, he also added, "It has to be premium, and SUVs are very popular, but it should be all-electric too. I think the SUVs in the future might not be exactly as SUVs are today. Ground clearance and off-roading capability are probably not the most important things now." While the product name wasn't revealed, Volvo has trademarked various XC names, including both XC10 and XC20.
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Volvo has begun the production of the all-electric Volvo XC40 Recharge at its Ghent plant
Recently, the company also announced commencing the production of the all-electric Volvo XC40 Recharge, at its Ghent plant in Western Belgium. This one, however, like the XC40, is built on the Compact Modular Architecture (CMA) platform. The XC40 Recharge will offer a projected range of over 400 km on a single charge and output of 408 bhp. The battery can be charged up to 80 per cent of its capacity in approximately 40 mins with a DC fast-charger system.
Source: Auto Express
