Volvo halts production of Electric cars & question EU’s CO2 & EV targets

The Volvo C30 EV won't be going in to production

Volvo has decided it will not put the C30 electric Car in to production and has called on the EU to address CO2 and EV targets.

Just as many other car makers are doing, Volvo has had a small fleet of electric test cars plodding round the roads to see what they’re capable of in the real world, in Volvo’s case a fleet of electric C30s.

But Volvo has decided that a production version of the C30 EV is a futile project and has revealed they will not be making a production version. Why? Because car buyers are just not interested in EVs.

Volvo cite the fact that less than 50,000 electric cars were sold worldwide in 2011 – and only a fraction of those to private buyers – due to the high cost and poor technology on offer, and take aim at the EU’s stupid targets for CO2 emissions and EV targets that are entirely unrealistic.

Volvo boss Stefan Jacoby also criticized the entirely ridiculous EU aims of reducing CO2 emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, cutting ICE cars in cities by half by 2030 and banning them completely by 2050.

Stefan said:

European car manufacturers are facing a very difficult challenge when CO2 legislations requiring electrified cars are implemented without initiatives that make these cars affordable for a growing number of consumers.

In 2011 fewer than 50,000 battery electric vehicles were sold in the world, equivalent to a market share of about 0.1 percent. The figure suggests that the car market will continue to be dominated by traditional combustion-engine models for the foreseeable future.

It is far too early to dismiss the conventional diesel and petrol power trains. We continuously improve their efficiency. In the last two years Volvo has brought CO2 emissions from our diesel and petrol model ranges down by 13 percent.

At last the car makers are starting to fight back against ridiculous EU targets imposed by legislators completely detached from the real world. Let’s hope the Volvo trickle of dissent turns in to a flood of common sense from other car makers.