Volvo Cars to produce electric motors in Skövde, Sweden

By CARSIFU | 10 December 2020


GOTHENBURG: Volvo Cars will assemble electric motors at its powertrain plant in Skövde, Sweden, and plans to establish complete in-house e-motor production by the middle of the decade.

It will invest 700 million SEK (RM337mil) to this end in the coming years. Skövde is 160km north-east of here in the hinterland.

The company is committed to becoming a premium electric car company and aims for its global sales to consist of 50 per cent fully electric cars by 2025, with the rest hybrids.

The Skövde operations have been part of the Volvo Cars story ever since the company’s founding in 1927. Adding e-motor production to the plant’s activities means the historic ground in Skövde will be a part of the company’s future as well.

Volvo Cars announced earlier this year that it is investing significantly in the in-house design and development of e-motors for the next generation of Volvo cars. With the planned investments in Skövde, it now takes the first steps towards in-house e-motor assembly and manufacturing.

In a first stage, the Skövde facility will assemble e-motors. At a later stage, the company intends to bring the full manufacturing process for e-motors in-house into a facility in Skövde.

273978_Electric_Motor


Bringing the development and production of e-motors in-house will allow Volvo Cars’ engineers to further optimise electric motors and the entire electric driveline in new Volvos. This approach will allow engineers to make further gains in terms of energy efficiency and overall performance.

Design and development of the company’s electric motors takes place in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Shanghai, China. Earlier this year, Volvo Cars opened a new electric motor lab in Shanghai, in addition to ongoing e-motor development in Gothenburg, and state-of-the-art battery labs in China and Sweden.

The remaining activities at the Skövde engine plant, focusing on the production of internal combustion engines, will be transferred to a separate subsidiary of Volvo Cars, named Powertrain Engineering Sweden (PES). PES is intended to be merged with Geely’s combustion engine operations, as announced earlier.

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