Volvo News

EV automakers face an uphill road. Not only do they have to make great looking cars that offer all the amenities of their gas-engined equivalents, but they've also got to assuage public concerns about the EV charging infrastructure -- an infrastructure that lies largely outside their control. Now...

Earlier this year were were granted exclusive access to Volvo’s Gothenburg headquarters where we were given a sneak peak of its 2012 V60 Plug-in Hybrid a full week before its official unveiling at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show. Although we were given a chance to look at the V60 PHEV’s...

It’s a well-known fact that just like humans, electric cars work best in temperate climates. But what is the coldest temperature an electric car needs to be operational in? And just how do you test that? While we’ve proven that cars like the 2011 Tesla Roadster can more than adequately...

Would you pay more than two grand a month to drive an electric Volvo? Apparently, the automaker thinks that there are at least a few people or businesses that will. Volvo Cars Special Vehicles president Lennart Stegland said that Volvo plans to offer the C30 Electric for lease—at a price of...

Can electric cars handle cold weather? It s a question which we’ve seen answered time and time again by the auto industry and journalists in an attempt prove or disprove that electric cars can operate in extremes of cold weather. We’ve seen Californian-designed Tesla sports cars...

At six years old, the Volvo C30 has come of age. Popular in Europe as Volvo’s safety-conscious answer to the hot hatchback. With a range of engine options available, the four-seat hatchback represents Volvo’s lightest and smallest car. It comes as no surprise then that it is the model...

Let’s be honest: Volvo isn’t the first company that comes to mind when thinking of electric vehicles. In fact, until the display of a crashed C30 Electric at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show earlier this year we’ve seen very little from Volvo’s plug-in fleet except a few...

While working energetically on its C30 DRIVe Electric battery-electric vehicle, Swedish carmaker Volvo has also been developing green powertrains for its larger vehicles for several years. Now, it's ready to unveil the first of these, a plug-in hybrid version of its V60 station wagon, a model not...

Scientists in Europe are working closely with major industry and government as part of a new initiative called SARTRE (SAfe Road TRains for the Environment), which hopes to develop self-driving technology that will allow vehicles to drive autonomously in long road trains on the highway. Just...

Despite thousands of automotive gasoline fires in the U.S. every year, we've pretty much normalized the risks of the highly explosive liquid that we use to fuel our cars. But for electric cars, there's a whole new set of potential fears. One may be driving through water--it's not like tossing a...

One of the great things about auto shows is the chance for journalists to drive prototype cars, especially at the Los Angeles Auto Show, known for its green-car test drives. We got a chance to spend 20 minutes behind the wheel of the Volvo C30 DRIVe Electric car, with Volvo's Lennart Stegland in...

It isn’t clear when the switch happened, but at some point automotive manufacturers decided that electric vehicles (EVs) were worth investing valuable R&D monies. Recently, AllSmallCars.com has reported on the Chevrolet Volt and the numerous awards it is winning from the automotive press...

Earlier this year we were all excited to hear about Volvo’s offering to the world of electric vehicles - the Volvo C30 EV. Debuted at the Detroit Auto Show in January, the S40-based car offered a eight hour recharging time using a 240V, 16A supply, a 24-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery and a...

Internal-combustion engines typically convert only one-third of the energy stored in gasoline or diesel fuel into usable power. The rest is wasted as heat, noise, or even goes unburnt. So the question for designers of range-extended electric vehicles becomes: How can onboard liquid fuel most...

The biggest challenge for battery electric vehicles is clearly the cost and the weight of today's lithium-ion battery packs. Now Volvo is experimenting with a new composite material that can store and release energy more quickly than a convention lithium-ion cell and, it says, might one day replace...

Ford Finally Agrees To Sell the Swedish Car Brand

Another EV Enters the Scene With Some New Features

Just days ago the Volvo C30 EV was presented at the EnerDel facility in Indiana.  Several reporters were on hand for the presentation as well as Volvo's director of special vehicles Lennart Stegland.  Stegland described many of the attributes of this new electric offering from the company...

Electric vehicles are significantly quieter than their traditional gas-powered counterparts. Maybe it's fitting then, that Volvo doesn't plan to say anything when they unveil their electric C30 at the Detroit Auto Show next week. Volvo spokesman, Dan Johnston, told Inside Line that the new...

Volvo has now released more details of the all-electric C30 concept car it will launch at next week's 2010 Detroit Auto Show. We covered early details a couple of weeks ago; here's the rest of the story on the little electric hatchback with no tailpipe. The electric C30 concept car will let the...