Volvo’s plug-in hybrid powertrains are off to a hot start, prompting the company to call for industry-wide standardization of charging infrastructure.
“Already now, one in five of all Volvo XC90s sold is a T8 Twin Engine plug-in hybrid,” the company recently said, as spotted by InsideEVs.
The XC90 has quickly become one of Volvo’s best-selling nameplates, second only to the XC60. The company has already delivered 12,274 units globally this year, with a grand total of 52,895 since the XC90 arrived on the market last year. Extrapolating the figures, the company appears to have sold around 10,500 XC90 PHEVs.
“We see that a shift towards fully electric cars is already underway, as battery technology improves, costs fall and charging infrastructure is put in place,” said Volvo’s R&D head, Dr. Peter Mertens.
The executive suggests limited charging infrastructure contributes to ‘range anxiety,’ and a lack of global standards has inhibited infrastructure buildout. The company is backing the Charging Interface Initiative, a consortium of stakeholders promoting a so-called Combined Charging System.
The technology is designed to accommodate both regular and fast-charging systems. It can handle up to 43kW on AC power or 200 kW on a DC circuit, with future support planned for 350kW. For comparison, Tesla’s Supercharger network delivers up to 120 kW of DC power.
Volvo promises to offer a plug-in hybrid variant of every new model as it replaces its entire product portfolio in the coming years. A fully-electric vehicle based on the modular SPA architecture is slated to arrive in 2019.
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