8:51 am, March 4, 2021
Volvo has said its ‘glory days’ of building estate cars are declining, but also that SUVs are posing a challenge in terms of efficiency.
The Swedish brand is famous for its spacious and boxy estate cars such as the 240, 850 and V70, but the sector is in decline thanks to the rise in popularity of SUVs.
However, high-riding SUVs pose a different challenge as their larger dimensions mean they are more inefficient – a problem that’s particularly apparent with electric SUVs.
Volvo has just committed to a pure-electric, purely digital future, as reported by Car Dealer (and you watch in the video at the top of this story).
Henrik Green, chief technology officer at Volvo Cars, told the PA news agency: ‘We can conclude that our former glory days of estate cars are declining.
The pure-electric Volvo C40 Recharge revealed this week
‘We have never been big in sedans [saloons] but the ones we do have are declining.
‘But at the same time, when we look into the future we can see that SUVs are not optimum from an efficiency standpoint. We see a need for more aerodynamic cars and for lower weight and rolling resistance.’
SUVs pose an issue towards efficiency owing to their large size and weight. With an upright design, they often falter when it comes to aerodynamics and require more energy to ‘push’ through the air which, in turn, puts more stress on the electric motor and uses up more charge.
It comes as the Swedish firm commits to a pure-electric future from 2030 onwards and revealing its newest electric car, the C40 Recharge coupe-SUV, this week.
Volvo does offer saloon and estate cars in the form of its S60, S90, V60 and V90 models, but has majored in recent years on SUVs in the form of its XC40, XC60 and XC90 models.
However, Green didn’t rule out the creation of new electric Volvo estate cars, adding: ‘We might see a growing trend again in the modern take on the traditional estate.’
