2023 was a turbulent, yet electrifying year of growth for Volvo Cars
As a turbulent yet memorable 2023 comes to an end, let’s look back and reflect on the year that was at Volvo Cars.
A grey EX90 with the trunk full of presents, parked in front of a Christmas tree.
What a year 2023 has been! We revealed several new electric cars, we made various other critical investments in our future, took important steps towards our sustainability ambitions, reported growing sales, and all this amidst a turbulent and challenging external environment. It sets us up nicely heading into 2024, which will be a crucial year for our ongoing transformation as a company.
Let’s take those beautiful new cars first. In June, we launched our small yet mighty EX30, a fully electric small SUV. Even before customers could get their hands on the EX30, it already made a big impression, with rave reviews and a tidy award collection from global automotive media. The EX30 packs a punch in a small frame: more sustainable materials and design, tech to make your life more enjoyable and an attractive price point for a premium electric car.
Then in the fall, we revealed our first ever fully electric MPV. The Volvo EM90 is like a Scandinavian living room on the move and combines comfort and luxury with the Volvo Cars quality that our customers expect. Both the EX30 and the EM90 expand our brand into new market segments and broaden our portfolio to a wider audience.
2023 was a year of growth.
The reveal of the EX30 and EM90 took place against the backdrop of growing popularity of our cars. November was our 15th consecutive month of sales growth, and our share of fully electric cars is tracking at 16 per cent, clearly demonstrating that we’re on the right path. We’re encouraged by this trend, which we expect to continue in coming years as we launch more new cars and keep moving towards our ambition to sell only fully electric cars by 2030.
Our new fully electric models represent significant investments, but we invested in our future in a variety of other ways. For example, all these new cars require infrastructure to bring them to market, so we’re establishing a new manufacturing plant in Slovakia. We’ve also started construction of a new battery plant in Sweden as part of our battery technology joint venture with Northvolt.
In our hometown of Gothenburg, we opened a new state-of-the-art software testing centre, while in Krakow and Singapore we added two new Tech Hubs, focusing on software development, to our global network of tech centres. We’re investing in-house software development, because controlling the software inside our cars is critical to achieve our strategic ambitions and creating a better experience for our customers.
Other highlights of the year included our ongoing commercial transformation which rethinks the way we take our cars to market, and the launch of a new business unit called Volvo Cars Energy Solutions. All these strategic plays are critical for our future, and 2024 will be another crucial year for our ongoing strategic transformation.
In 2024, for the first time in the history of our company, we'll roll out three of our newest fully electric cars with the latest technologies. The EX30 and EM90, as well as our EX90 flagship SUV, not only exemplify the future of our company but also help us to expand our customer base by entering three entirely new segments.
They’re also a key part of our response to climate change. By going all-in on electric and software-defined cars, we invest in the technologies of the future and say goodbye to those of the past. The EX30 is designed to boast the smallest CO2 footprint of any Volvo car ever and represents our direction of travel in terms of our climate action plan.
We’re likely to see continued macroeconomic turbulence and uncertainty in 2024. However, we’re ready to face these challenges and will stay the course. By relying on our unique Volvo purpose, culture and values, we’ll ensure that everyone inside our company is pulling together in the same strategic direction. In a complex and fast-moving world, our shared purpose and culture give us the freedom to be creative, to embrace the power of collaboration, to do things differently and, above all, better.
So while 2023 was quite the year, we’re more than ready to charge into 2024. Thanks to all our colleagues for all your hard work this year and happy holidays from all of us at Volvo Cars.
