Volvo will move away from its current model naming convention by giving names to future models rather than numbers, company boss Hakan Samuelsson has confirmed.
The Swedish manufacturer recently unveiled the Concept Recharge which foreshadows the successor to the XC90 scheduled for next year. At this launch, Samuelsson said Volvo would depart from its long-standing XC nomenclature for SUVs by giving the new car “a name, like a child.”
Asked by Autocar about Volvo’s model naming strategy, Samuelsson said next-generation models that follow the XC90’s successor will also receive more “emotional” names.
“If you look at cars today, they all have very ‘engineered’ names: XC, T8, all-wheel drive, dual overhead camshaft – everything is specified on the back of a lot of cars,” said Samuelsson.
“We are talking about a totally new architecture, a new generation of born electric cars and fully electric with central computing. It is good and clear to mark that this is a new beginning, and that is why we are not going to have numbers and letters, a technical type name. We will give them a name like you give a newborn baby a name.
Samuelsson said the name of the successor to the XC90 has not been finalized and that “we have a very interesting and creative discussion going on.”
With a few exceptions, Volvo has used numeric or alphanumeric nomenclature throughout its history. It adopted its current system in 1995, using S for sedans, V for station wagons, C for sedans and coupes, and XC for SUVs, followed by a number based on size.
Volvo’s shift to model names goes against an industry trend towards alphanumeric titles, which are considered easier to standardize around the world. Volkswagen, for example, uses model numbers for its line of electric ID cars, instead of names such as Polo, Golf and Tiguan used for its ICE models.
Volvo aims for further growth after strong business results
Volvo sold 380,757 cars in the first six months of 2021, a 41% year-over-year change from the pandemic-hit first half of 2020. More importantly, that’s almost 40,000 more than Volvo sold in the first half of 2019.
Added in the last half of 2020, Volvo has a 12-month “rolling sales total” of 775,000 cars, which the company aims to achieve 1.2 million sales per year by the middle of this decade.
The company reiterated that growth will come both from finding new customers in its existing markets and expanding its model range.
Volvo is working on a new small electric Volvo crossover – actually an XC20, although it is about to adopt a different name – which will be based on parent company Geely’s SEA platform. Samuelsson said that “it is very likely” that this model will be built in China and noted that it will arrive sometime after the successor to the XC90, which is expected next year.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-07-23 11:00:35
