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Volvo Cars hopes to raise $2.9 billion in its stock IPO

STOCKHOLM/LONDON — Geely-owned Volvo Cars plans to raise 25 billion Swedish crowns ($2.9 billion) through an initial public offering (IPO), the Swedish carmaker said on Monday of what would be one of Europe's biggest listings this year. Volvo said it will list on the Nasdaq Stockholm stock exchange this year and that Chinese owner Geely Holding would remain its biggest shareholder. In 2018, Volvo Cars and Geely, which also owns an 8.2% stake in Sweden's Volvo Trucks, postponed plans to float shares in the Swedish carmaker, citing trade tensions and a downturn in automotive stocks. "Volvo Cars believes that its unique structure and focused strategy makes it one of the fastest transformers in the global automotive industry, with mid-decade ambitions dedicated to electrification, sustainability and digitization," the Swedish company said in a statement. Like a number of other carmakers, Volvo has committed to shifting its entire car range to fully-electric models by 2030. Volvo said is targeting an operating margin of between 8% and 10% by 2025. It is also aiming for annual sales of 1.2 million cars, up 56% from the 770,000 it sold in the 12 months to June 20 this year. Electric push The carmaker said it expects 50% of sales to be fully electric cars by the middle of the decade and that 50% of sales will be made online rather than in dealerships. Volvo Cars said earlier on Monday that its sales in September fell 30% from a year earlier, dented by the global components shortage. Sources told Reuters last month that Geely was in advanced discussions with banks to list the Swedish company in the coming weeks, aiming for a valuation of about $20 billion. Volvo Cars had previously said it was considering a Stockholm listing in the second half of 2021. A Volvo spokesperson on Monday said that the company had no comment on valuation or on how much of the business would be sold in the IPO. "There will be further information published in connection with the prospectus," she said. Electric-car maker Polestar, which is owned by Geely and Volvo, last week said it will go public by merging with a U.S.-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) backed by billionaire Alec Gores and investment bank Guggenheim Partners at an enterprise value of $20 billion. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. 2022 Volvo C40 Recharge charging

How Volvo is going greener, according to sustainability chief Henrik Green

STOCKHOLM — This week, Volvo unveiled its new flagship electric vehicle, the EX90 three-row SUV. ItÂ’s not just a look at a product weÂ’ll see come to market in 2024, but a glimpse at the approach Volvo is taking to become more sustainable as it aims to go all-electric by 2030 and carbon-neutral by 2040. After the unveiling of the EX90, we had the opportunity to speak with Henrik Green, VolvoÂ’s advanced technology and sustainability officer, as part of a roundtable discussion about the brandÂ’s climate strategy moving forward. Part of the strategy is accountability and transparency. In an industry where sensitive materials like cobalt and lithium can be environmentally, socially and geopolitically problematic, traceability is paramount. Volvo will use blockchain technology — the same sort of secure ledger tech that makes cryptocurrency possible — to trace cobalt, lithium and nickel from their very origins in the earth all the way to the EX90s that roll off the factory floor. Green said he expects that traceability to expand to more materials, but those three are what Volvo can commit to today. Green also predicts a time when “you as a consumer should be able to see, ‘Here, in my app, this is the car I bought, this is where my nickel came from thatÂ’s in my car.’” While step one is improving transparency, “the next step is — this is much more long-term — how can we affect the industry to source from the most sustainable sources as possible?” And that leads us to recycling. A circular economy is the goal, where raw materials are used minimally, replaced by materials sourced from old cars, batteries, electronics and the like. But that depends on the first generations of electric cars fulfilling their lifecycles before they can be recycled. And obviously the better the longevity of products like batteries, the longer this will take. “Unfortunately, it has this built-in time lag of putting batteries out there that live until they need to be replaced, and then we will get the material back.” Partners are beginning to scout for those recyclable materials from sources like non-automotive electronics, “but the massive volume of car batteries will not be accessible until these cars have been on the road 10, 15 or more years.” But recyclability is one of the main factors Volvo looks for when partnering with companies like Northvolt, with whom Volvo is building a factory and R&D center in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Volvo, Polestar reportedly planning twin city-friendly electric SUVs

Volvo is nearly ready to unveil the next generation of the XC90, its flagship model, but it's not forgetting about the other end of its range. It's reportedly planning to launch an entry-level model that will take the form of a pocket-sized crossover powered by an electric drivetrain. Without citing sources, British magazine Autocar reported that the model will ride on a modular platform developed by Volvo parent company Geely and called SEA internally. This architecture already underpins the 001 sold by Zeekr, which is another brand in the Geely empire. No technical specifications are available at this point, but the report sketches the outline of a high-riding model with a sleek-looking silhouette. This isn't the first time we've heard about Volvo's city-friendly SUV; earlier rumors claimed it would be called XC20 or C20, names that would have clearly signaled the model's positioning as being below the 40-badged cars. Volvo is moving away from this naming system, however, and the cars it will launch in the coming years will receive actual names. With that said, both the XC20 and the C20 names are off the table. Polestar's take on the concept of an electric entry-level crossover will be positioned between the 2 and the 3, though it will somewhat confusingly be called 4. It sounds like the model will be bigger and more expensive than Volvo's, and Autocar learned that it could be closely related to the C40 Recharge (pictured) underneath the sheetmetal. If that's accurate, it will share its CMA architecture with the 2, among other models, and it will be offered with either a single electric motor that zaps the front wheels or dual-motor all-wheel-drive. Both EVs will have at least one thing in common: a mission to boost sales. For Volvo, launching a battery-powered car pegged near the bottom of its range will increase the percentage of EVs in its global sales mix. It's planning to cross the 50% mark by 2025. For Polestar, entering cheaper segments will allow it to boost its annual sales by reaching less affluent buyers, though it will remain a premium brand. Polestar 4 is tentatively due out in 2023. There's no word on when Volvo will release its smallest EV to date.