Volvo’s EX60 Defies Expectations With 40,000 Units Scheduled For Production

• Production of the Volvo EX60 kicked off yesterday in Sweden.
• Volvo expects to build up to 40,000 EX60 EVs at its Torslanda plant this year.
• The next-generation electric crossover has seen massive success since its debut.

The Volvo EX60 electric mid-size crossover is now rolling off the assembly line at the company’s factory in Torslanda, Sweden, and the automaker has high expectations to live up to.

After the EX60’s debut, Volvo said that interest in its next-gen EV was off the charts, but refrained from offering actual numbers. Now, though, we have a figure, and it’s quite impressive.

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Source: Volvo

The Swedish carmaker expects to build up to 40,000 EX60s this year, CEO Hakan Samuelsson told Reuters yesterday. “Interest has been above our planned order intake, higher than ​planned, so at least we know we have the customers; the challenge is now on ​delivering, not selling,” Samuelsson said.

Earlier this year, Volvo said it was planning to increase the production of the EX60 due to its popularity, even before the first customer-spec models had rolled off the assembly line. The order intake has been so high that the Swedish brand began negotiations with labor unions to convince them to keep the Torslanda plant open one extra week in the summer, which has never happened before.

A similar thing happened with BMW’s new iX3. The German company boosted output at its factory in Debrecen, Hungary, ahead of schedule because interest in the new electric crossover surpassed expectations. 

The EX60 is a key model for Volvo. After the problematic launches of the EX30 and EX90, the Scandinavian automaker needs to make things right–both for customers and itself. In the first quarter, the company’s global sales dropped 17%, but fully electric models kept the company afloat, recording a 12% increase in sales.

With 400 miles of range and a 10-to-80% charge in less than 20 minutes, it’s not hard to see why people have ordered the EX60 in droves. The electric crossover is on sale in Europe only for now, but the order books will open later this spring for American customers, too. With top-spec range, power, and charging figures, the EX60 has huge potential in the U.S., where the EX30 has been discontinued, and the costly EX90 has so far failed to take off.

In Europe, the EX60 is priced roughly the same as the XC60 plug-in hybrid, eliminating the stigma that usually surrounds EV prices. If Volvo manages to keep the same price balance in the U.S., it might hit it big.