(task) Volvo to drop traditional engines - BBC News

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transportation, green-washing, EV
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> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40505671 <http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40505671>
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> Volvo to drop traditional engines
> Getty Images
> Carmaker Volvo has said all new models will have an electric motor from 2019.
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> The Chinese-owned firm, best known for its emphasis on driver safety, has become the first traditional carmaker to signal the end of the internal combustion engine.
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> It plans to launch five fully electric models between 2019 and 2021 and a range of hybrid models.
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> But it will still be manufacturing earlier models that have pure combustion engines.
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> Geely, Volvo's Chinese owner, has been quietly pushing ahead with electric car development for more than a decade.
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> It now aims to sell one million electric cars by 2025.
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> 'PR coup'
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> "This announcement marks the end of the solely combustion engine-powered car," said Hakan Samuelsson, chief executive of Volvo's carmaking division.
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> "People increasingly demand electrified cars, and we want to respond to our customers' current and future needs," he said.
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> Tim Urquhart, principal analyst at IHS Automotive, said the move was a "clever sort of PR coup - it is a headline grabber".
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> "It is not something that moves the goalposts hugely," he said.
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> "Cars launched before that date [of 2019] will still have traditional combustion engines.
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> "The announcement is significant, and quite impressive, but only in a small way. The hybrids they are promising to make might be mild hybrids, anything as basic as a stop-start system."
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> A stop-start system is one where electricity from batteries restart a car's petrol engine, after it has shut down when the car has come to rest at a junction, or in stationary traffic.
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> "However, Volvo are probably looking at something more sophisticated than that, but we don't know what as yet."
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> Tesla targets
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> It comes after US-based electric car firm Tesla announced on Sunday that it will start deliveries of its first mass-market car, the Model 3, at the end of the month.
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> Elon Musk, Tesla's founder, said the company was on track to make 20,000 Model 3 cars a month by December.
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> His company's rise has upset the traditional power balance of the US car industry.
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> Tesla, which makes no profits, now has a stock market value of $58bn, nearly one-quarter higher than that of Ford, one of the Detroit giants that has dominated the automotive scene for more than a century.