Volvo to triple electric car production at Ghent facility

Volvo Cars is tripling electric car manufacturing capacity at its plant in Ghent, Belgium, as it prepares to meet fast growing demand for its Recharge lineup of chargeable cars.

The capacity increase comes as Volvo Cars also reports its full-year sales results for 2020, which showed a strong growth in demand for the Recharge models. The share of Recharge cars as a percentage of total sales more than doubled in 2020, compared to 2019. By 2022, electric car capacity at the Ghent plant will have more than tripled from current levels and amount to around 60% of the plant's total production capacity.

Ghent is currently preparing to take a second fully electric Volvo model, based on the CMA modular vehicle architecture, into production later this year. The plant already builds the XC40 Recharge, Volvo's first fully electric car, as well as a plug-in hybrid version of the XC40.

Volvo Cars is committed to becoming a premium electric car company and in coming years, the company will launch several fully electric cars. By 2025, it aims for its global sales to consist of 50% fully electric cars, with the rest hybrids.

While Ghent is the first of its global manufacturing network to start building fully electric cars, the company also has plans to increase electric car manufacturing capacity at its other facilities around the globe. In December 2020, Volvo Cars also announced it will assemble electric motors at its powertrain plant in Skovde, Sweden, and plans to establish complete in-house e-motor production by mid-decade. Volvo is also investing significantly in the in-house design and development of e-motors for the next generation of Volvo cars.