Volvo's first all-electric car

2019 Volvo XC40 EV.  Source: Green Car Reports

The Volvo XC40 crossover SUV is to be company's first all-electric car.  And it's coming out next year.  I talked here about Honda's new cheap EV ($18K) which will start production in 2020.

Volvo has said that its all-electric range will have a minimum range of 250 miles (400 kilometres) and will start at $35-$40K, about the same as Tesla's Model 3 base version.  It will be the cheapest car in Volvo's US line-up.  Which means that, for the first time, the EV will be cheaper than the ICEV (Of course, Volvo will also have much grander and more expensive EVs in their eventual line-up).  If you feel Volvo has some cachet, the cheapest Volvo you can buy will be an all-electric car.  And that's awesome.  Combine that with Honda's cheap (but shorter range) EV and you can start to see how close we are to EVs dominating the car market.

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And oil companies are starting to see the light.  BP has just bought the UK's largest EV charger company,  ChargeMaster which has 6500 UK chargers.  And Shell has partnered with the European Ionity charger network to bring EV charge stations to their petrol service stations, as well as putting Shell-branded chargers at UK and Dutch service stations, which look exactly like petrol bowsers.

By 2020, EVs will have gone from fringe to mainstream.  Within a few years after that, EVs will make up more than 50% of car sales.  Charger networks will be expanding exponentially everywhere.