EVs to play significant role in closing on record sales this year: Volvo Car India MD Jyoti Malhotra

Gurugram: Swedish luxury carmaker Volvo Cars expects electric cars to play a significant role in its bid to close in on record sales in India this year, a senior company official said on Wednesday.

The company unveiled its all-electric SUV C40 Recharge in India, which will be launched in August and deliveries to start September onwards.

The vehicle will be the company's second electric offering in India after its fully-electric XC40 Recharge launched last year.

"2023 has started on a very promising note and we believe that we will do much better this year as compared to the last few years. Since the pandemic I think the market was a bit slow and then we had supply issues.

"Supply issue is still around us but I believe that we should go back close to the 2018 number which was our peak," Volvo Car India Managing Director Jyoti Malhotra told PTI here.

In 2018, Volvo Car India had sold 2,600 units. Last year it sold around 1,800 units in the domestic market.

Asked if the company could cross record sales this year, he said, "We want to cross it. From the demand side I am very confident but from the supply side there are still constraints." The supply chain constraints are mostly to do with semiconductors, he said, adding the average waiting period at present is about three months across models.

The EVs will play a significant role in closing on the record sales this year, Malhotra said.

"The way we are doing business, we started our first (electric) car last year with the XC40 Recharge and now we are bringing the C40 Recharge. This will help us to improve the market and we are very confident that this will help us add new customers to buy electric cars," he said.

Malhotra further said, "Within our own portfolio we are now close to 27 per cent (of total sales coming from EVs)." Earlier this year in February, the company had stated that it could go fully electric in India by around 2025, much ahead of its global target of becoming a full-electric car company by 2030.

The company had stated that it would keep launching one electric vehicle every year in the country going forward.

"I think we are very much on the right path and we believe that we will get there much faster," Malhotra said on the progress towards electrification.

On the C40 Recharge, he said it has been built as an EV from scratch, delivering a range of 530 km on a single charge.

It has a 78kWh battery, with twin motors and maximum power output of 408 hp. The vehicle can accelerate from 0-100kmph in 4.8 seconds.

It also has a fast charging feature that enables 10-80 per cent charging in 27 minutes.

The C40 Recharge would be imported as completely knocked down units and assembled at the company's Bengaluru plant as is being done with the XC40 Recharge.

Volvo Cars' current India portfolio comprises fully-electric XC40 Recharge, SUVs XC90, XC60 and XC40 along with sedan S90.