Volvo is Heading in the Right Direction

As the name in safety for so many years much of the negative feeling for Volvo for several years was the fact there was not much in the way of style.  Volvo has addressed this problem by offering some of the most sophisticated and stylish vehicles on the market which are ready to take the next step.  What is the next step?  According to Volvo and many other experts the next step is electrification.  Putting an electric powertrain into the Volvo vehicles is the direction we are headed and we should certainly take a look at how they are going to make this happen.

First of all there are two basic architectures used by Volvo for building their vehicles.  The scalable product architecture (SPA) which is made for the larger vehicles of all the 90 and 60 series vehicles and the compact modular architecture (CMA) which is for the 40 series and smaller vehicles.  For us in the US, we will see nothing that is smaller than the 40 series which means we will only have one platform with the CMA underneath.  As for the electrification, the CMA was built specifically to allow this to take place, making it part of the plan from the start.

Before we get to the electrification you should know Volvo intents to only use four-cylinder engines on both of these platforms.  The new gasoline engines will consist of the 2.0-liter four-cylinder and the 1.5-liter three-cylinder in order to begin to accommodate plug in hybrid systems which will be made to provide a way to enjoy the best of both of these systems under one of these amazing and safe vehicles.  In addition to offering a new hybrid system, the 90 series is expected to have a full batter electric vehicle by 2019.

What’s amazing is the size of the different vehicles, especially the SUV models that are built off these two platforms.  Even the largest SUV, the XC90 will use the SPA platform and only have the power of a four-cylinder engine.  This engine actually provides plenty of power to be a great platform to choose and give you the power you want and the acceleration you need to enjoy the ride.  With a transversely mounted engine this vehicle will make a full 316 horsepower while using the eight-speed automatic.  With the plug in hybrid this vehicle is upped to 400 horsepower and uses an electric motor to power the rear wheels.

On the smaller platform the CMA offers a 180 horsepower engine from the 1.5-liter turbocharged inline three-cylinder engine which also uses a 55 kW electric motor and is attached to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission.  This engine will also be placed in the 60 series with the SPA platform to give us a great system to use.  These will only be offered as FWD but will give you nearly 31 miles of all-electric range to enjoy and if you have a short daily commute this could be a great way to save on gas.

As you can easily see, Volvo is taking the power and performance of their vehicles to a new level in order to bring us the electric driving that we want.  So many automakers are able to pull out more power from smaller engines with the use of turbocharging and by boosting the number with hybrid systems.  This makes for a great way to save fuel, be more economical and offer vehicles that still have the capability of being fantastic to drive and understand.  You want to have a vehicle that performs well and it seems Volvo is well on its way to bringing us what we want for power and performance from hybrid models.