100% of Volvo fleet will have some form of electric motor by 2019

Money

The Swedish automaker is slamming on the brakes on vehicles powered solely by internal combustion engines, announcing that every car it makes from 2019 onward will have an electric motor.

The move makes Chinese-owned Volvo the first traditional carmaker to fully embrace electric and hybrid production.

Volvo said it would launch five fully electric cars between 2019 and 2021. Three of them will carry the Volvo brand, and the other two will come from the company's high-performance unit Polestar.

The rest of Volvo's fleet will consist of either plug-in hybrid cars or mild hybrid cars, which combine a small gas engine with a battery.

Starting in 2019, Volvo will only produce cars that have some form of electric motor -- and no cars running purely on an internal combustion engine.

The shift is likely to have been influenced by Chinese auto company Geely, which bought Volvo in 2010.

China has been swift to adopt electric vehicles. The world's second-largest economy, which is plagued by air pollution, wants 5 million electric cars on its roads by 2020.








INB4: expensive Volkswagen will break down