Volvo Cars last month took a step back in its quest to reach a major sales milestone for its full-electric vehicles.
EVs accounted for 3.5 per cent of the automaker’s total global volumes in July, at just 1,583 units. This was a 26 percent drop in EV sales in July 2021.
The automaker’s overall volume fell 22 percent to 44,664 in July.
Despite the setbacks, Volvo is confident that EVs will account for at least 10 percent of full-year volume, which it predicts will be flat.
Volvo, which aims to be an electric-only brand by 2030, is bullish as it “continues to see a marked improvement in the stabilization of its supply chain, confirming a positive trend in production in July to June,” the company said. a statement.
The decline in EV sales is expected to continue temporarily before turning positive.
“We’ll see a little [in EV sales] In the third quarter, but in the fourth quarter, we will have considerable growth,” said Johan Ekdahl, Acting Chief Financial Officer of Volvo. Automotive News Europe last month.
Ekdahl said the reason for the continued decline is the time it takes for retail sales to reflect the increase in production.
“In addition, the installed capacity addition for EVs that we have added will help us gradually increase volumes during the second half,” he added.
Volvo has increased the annual production capacity for full-electric cars at its plants to 155,000, up from 12,900 EVs a month.
Volvo sold 698,693 vehicles last year, of which EVs accounted for 25,727 or 3.7 per cent.
As of July, Volvo is 101,675 units behind its sales level compared to the same period last year.
To erase that deficit and match volumes from the past five months of 2021, Volvo would need to average about 72,400 sales a month.
To achieve its EV target, which will be over 69,000 units, it will need to sell an average of more than 9,200 full-electric models a month for the rest of the year.