There’s the XC40. Then there’s also the C40. There’s the battery electric vehicles. Then there are also the plug-in electric vehicles. And the maker of them all, much like the biggies Mercedes and BMW, is the Sweden-hailing Volvo.
It’s a brand you don’t quite find screaming for attention or one that’s shoving its presence on your face. It’s also not a brand that you find the prospective buyer desperately running around for.
Yet, the sales figures set the cash registers ringing. Yet, there’s this feeler that the brand that’s been around now for a decade and a half here in India is doing pretty well and the zing hasn’t betrayed the wheels.
And still, it ought to be reminded that gone are the days where one only thought of the V40 or the XC90 or the S80 as being the standard luxury offerings by the house of the Swedish carmaker.
Volvo, truth be told, has come a long way here in the bustling heart of the sub-continent since its foray towards the car-obsessed lot back in 2007/08 season.
At a time where just about every prominent carmaker is trying to ride the electric wave, Volvo’s pure electric offerings are quite mouthwatering and by usual standards, chic.
A perfect melange of the suave and the utility that a brand simply committed to serving with passion can offer, it appears as though Volvo isn’t too far behind where it comes to creating a storm in the EV market.
But how so? What do we know about the famous Gothenburg-based iconic carmaker that supports what to many may still seem like a tall claim?
Well, let’s delve deeper than India to get a sense of just where Volvo’s currently at and that might help.
For starters, where it comes to serving the US car market, then in comparison to its figures of 2022, Volvo sold 10,230 more cars; of these, the March figures of this year stood at 2,905 plug-ins, which was an impressive rate.
Here’s what the global news room from the Volvo cars’ site had to say:
The number of active subscriptions at the end of 2022 had increased by 49.0 per cent compared with last year. And for the full year of 2022, the number of Volvo Cars sold online increased by 17.0 per cent compared with 2021. This growth was driven by increasing customer demand in combination with a broadened offer in more markets.
Volvo’s sales in Europe where it comes to the plug-in electric cars had been constantly on the upswing since December 2021. As a matter of fact, as of December 2022, Volvo sold around 23,000 plus plug-in EV’s in Europe, which wasn’t an ordinary figure but indicative of a growth rate of a 22 percent rise in sales than this time the year before.
But if one were to talk about a product-specific performance, then the four wheel machine that made most heads turn in the last twelve months was none other than its XC40 recharge.
That was the case in the global markets. That was also the case where it came to a scathigly competitive market such as India.
Not a bold statement and not some sketchy remark either; it was towards the end of July 2022 where Volvo opened the bookings for the XC40 recharge in India and the company reported a rather telling fact.
All the 150 units of the car were sold inside a space of two hours, which is a sales performance that’s worthy of being called scintillating.
The deliveries of each unit of the XC40 recharge were completed before the last year ended.
But the company statement that points to a rather mouthwatering prospect for EV lovers is that by 2030, Volvo is talking about selling only pure electric cars, perhaps sensing the fact that by such time the electric vehicle revolution would’ve consumed everything in its wake, including the ICE-based models.
For a brand typically understated, Volvo drives headlines through pure performance. That’s the way to go and maybe that’s the thing that will further endear a successful European hotseller to a perpetually car hungry market like India.
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