Volvo will debut the fully electric successor of the XC90 flagship SUV next year. However, the company will not continue with XC90 but instead, give it a name.
In an interview with Autocar UK, Hakan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo Car, said the Scandinavian marque will diverge from its long-running XC nomenclature for SUVs by giving the new car “a name, like a child.”
“If you look at cars today, all of them are very ‘engineeredly’ named: XC, T8, All-Wheel-Drive, double-overhead cams – it’s all specifications on the rear of many cars,” said Samuelsson.
Volvo unveiled the Concept Recharge earlier this month, a new EV that encompasses many new technologies to make EVs operate better, simpler, and built more cost-efficiently.
“We are talking about a totally new architecture, a new generation of born-electric, all-electric cars with central computing. It’s good and clear to mark that this is a new beginning, and that’s why we’re not going to have numbers and letters, an engineering type of name,” elaborated Samuelsson.
Volvo confirms next-gen XC60 to be EV, expected to launch around 2026. Read about it here!
The all-new flagship SUV is due next year, with the Volvo plant in the USA listed as one of its production sites.
Samuelsson has certainly not divulged the actual model name of the upcoming EV model, but hinted that the name would be interesting and more emotional.
With a few exceptions, Volvo has used a simple alphanumeric model nomenclature since 1995. The alphabet determines the body type while the numeral represents the model hierarchy or positioning. This combination has been followed by many brands, such as Infiniti as well as Proton when launching the new SUV models with the help of Geely.
At the other end of the spectrum, Volvo is also reported to be offering an EV smaller than the currently available C40 Recharge. Thanks to its strong and mutual partnership with Geely, Volvo’s entry EV will be built in China and be based on Geely’s SEA platform, which also underpins Smart’s upcoming EV model.
Geely’s SEA platform is highly scalable, able to be configured to over 10 models of different bodytypes and sizes. Get to know more about the SEA platform here.
