In a challenge to conventional tyre setups, Volvo Cars will equip its fully electric cars with Recharge tyres for use all year round as standard in Northern and Central Europe.
With a single set of tyres capable of safely handling a wider range of weather and road conditions than summer or winter tyres, Volvo Cars aims to simplify customers’ lives by avoiding the bi-annual hassle of tyre changes, while also reducing CO2 emissions.
The Recharge tyres are the first tyres for year-round use to achieve A-class energy efficiency. This innovation is in line with the company’s aspiration to lead the industry in offering more sustainable products.
Driving a pure electric Volvo XC40 on Recharge tyres can reduce energy consumption by up to 8 per cent and extend the average driving range, compared with driving on winter tyres*.
As more customers use just one set of tyres all year round, aluminium wheel production can be reduced, bringing an additional climate impact benefit.
“With electric cars, keeping tyre rolling resistance low is more important than with traditionally powered cars, since it has a bigger impact on consumption and range,” said Gisela Blomkvist, head of Volvo Cars Sustainability Centre. “Usually, that trait is limited to summer tyres – but with Recharge tyres we extend this into the winter months and realise clear benefits for customers and the environment.”
In large parts of Europe, the conventional tyre setup of summer and winter tyres might not always be the safest option for the actual weather and road conditions.
Volvo Cars safety experts have identified that it is less safe to use traditional summer or winter tyres when conditions are dry or wet with temperatures around zero degrees. In these conditions, the Recharge tyres are the safest option.
The Recharge tyres, specially developed for our Recharge product line, offer the best-balanced safety performance all year round and excel when the weather and road conditions change frequently.
“In a perfect world, you would wake up each morning, look outside your window, listen to the weather report and fit the right tyres to your car based on what you see and hear before driving away," said Jan Ivarsson, senior safety expert at Volvo Cars Safety Centre. "Of course, that’s too much to ask of people, so we offer the Recharge tyres as the best-balanced alternative to help keep our customers safe all year round."
The Recharge tyres, however, may not be the best option for everyone. For customers who live in areas where winter conditions are severe and driving on snow or ice is common, or for customers who frequently visit areas like these, traditional friction or studded winter tyres remain the safest choice and are still available as an option.
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Volvo Car Group in 2020
For the 2020 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 8.5 BSEK (14.3 BSEK in 2019). Revenue over the period amounted to 262.8 BSEK (274.1 BSEK). For the full year of 2020, global sales reached 661,713 cars (705,452), a decline of 6.2 per cent compared to 2019.
About Volvo Car Group
Volvo Cars was founded in 1927. Today, it is one of the most well-known and respected car brands in the world with sales of 661,713 cars in 2020 in about 100 countries. Volvo Cars has been under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding since 2010.
As of December 2020, Volvo Cars employed approximately 40,000 (41,500) full-time employees. Volvo Cars head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Volvo Cars head office for APAC is located in Shanghai. The company’s main car production plants are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), South Carolina (US), Chengdu and Daqing (China), while engines are manufactured in Skövde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China) and body components in Olofström (Sweden).
Under its new company purpose, Volvo Cars aims to provide customers with the Freedom to Move in a personal, sustainable and safe way. This purpose is reflected in a number of business ambitions: for example, by the middle of this decade it aims for half of its global sales to be fully electric cars, to sell half of its global volume online and to establish five million direct consumer relationships. Volvo Cars is also committed to an ongoing reduction of its carbon footprint, with the ambition to be a climate-neutral company by 2040.
