By Nick Carey
LONDON (Reuters) – Volvo Cars said on Tuesday that it will end production of any remaining diesel models by early 2024 as it heads towards becoming an all-electric carmaker.
“In a few months from now, the last diesel-powered Volvo car will have been built, making Volvo Cars one of the first legacy car makers to take this step,” the Swedish company said in a statement.
Majority owned by China’s Geely, Volvo has committed to going fully electric by 2030.
While a majority of the cars Volvo sold in Europe were diesel as recently as 2019, in 2022 they made up just 8.9% of the Swedish carmaker’s sales.
In August 33% of Volvo’s sales were fully-electric or hybrid models. The company did not break out how many of the remaining 67% combustion-engine models were diesel and how many ran on petrol.
Sales of diesel models have declined rapidly in Europe since Volkswagen’s emission-cheating scandal and carmakers have been gradually reducing the number of diesel models available in their model lineups.
Diesel vehicles comprised more than 50% of Europe’s new car sales in 2015, but accounted for just over 14% of sales in July.
(Reporting by Nick Carey, Editing by Louise Heavens)
