Automotive News Europe — 2024-06-17
Automotive Industry
Volvo says customers will end up paying for the new tariffs on China imports.
Volvo criticized new high tariffs that the European Commission plans to apply to Chinese-built battery-electric cars exported to Europe.
Customers will end up paying the tariffs, Volvo Deputy CEO Bjorn Annwall said.
Volvo supports open and fair trade, Annwall said. "Anything that gets in the way of that is not a good thing," he told the Automotive News Europe Congress in Frankfurt on 12 June 2024.
Volvo, which is based in Sweden, is owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group.
Volvo's EX30 electric compact SUV is built in China and exported to Europe. Volvo also imports into Europe small quantities of the XC60 midsize SUV and S90 sedan.
Volvo will start production of the EX30 for Europe markets in its plant in Ghent, Belgium in 2025.
Annwall said the EX30 could also be exported to the US from Belgium. This would avoid the punitively high tariff imposed by the Biden administration on Chinese-built EVs.
Keeping all-electric goal
Annwall said Volvo will stick to its strategy to drop ICE cars and sell only battery-electric vehicles in Europe by 2030, despite the recent slowdown in EV sales in the region.
The ending of purchase incentives by some European governments at the same time as consumers were hit by high inflation and interest rates had impact EV sales, Annwall said.
"The next couple of years is going to be very rocky," he said.
Premium brands such as Volvo will find it easier to increase EV sales compared with volume brands because it will be easier for them to reach price parity between EVs and the corresponding ICE models, Annwall said.
Volvo will reach parity "well before 2030," he said.