Kelly Blue Book helps people figure out how much a car is worth and gives reviews to help buyers decide. It’s often used by dealers and consumers alike.
The GLE is a big, comfortable SUV from Mercedes-Benz that comes with lots of tech and safety features. It’s a good choice if you want luxury and room for passengers or cargo.
A second‑generation hybrid is a newer type of car that uses both a gasoline engine and electric motors to run. It’s more efficient and cleaner than the first hybrids people used in the 2000s.
The air conditioning compressor is a machine inside your car that helps make the cabin cool. It squeezes the cooling fluid so it can move through the system and chill the air.
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managing editor Doug Bulldock and Volvo car CEO, Hulk on Samuelson. If you miss the first part of that conversation, you can go back and listen to Tuesday's episode of Daily Drive. In this portion of the interview, they discuss what Samuelson sees as the powertrain of the future and the role range extenders could play, as well as the automaker's relationship with its parent company, China's Glee, and what that means for the future of Volvo. Long range plug-in hybrids are
built primarily as an electric car that has some combustion to charge the battery, whereas your first wave of plug-in hybrids were more so a combustion car that had a battery to assist. So, is there a potential to take like a spa-based car with that sort of combustion first electrification second and then flip it into electrification first? Or is that just like engineering impossibility?
Yeah, good idea. Let's look into that. No, I think everything is possible. So, I think also, of course, from an economical point of view, from an environmental point of view, you would like to have a plug-in hybrid really being driven electric normally. Say 90 percent of the mileage should be done electric. I mean, then it's good for the environment, then it's a much more economical car to drive.
And you avoid this feeling up. It's filled up automatically every day. But you don't need to be very nervous. Suddenly I will drive a bit extra here and then I'm left somewhere with the flat battery, then the engine kicks in. So, I think you should see the future of the plug-in car is more to have a characteristics of an electric car, but with the backup engine.
While the first generation was just a combustion car which had batteries, you could drive around some miles in the city and that is really not the same thing. So, I think a car of the future should be experienced as electric.
And I mean, Volvo, we will have electric cars. I think long-term, they will be all electric. Short-term as the bridge, we need some electric cars with the backup engine.
And that's what we call the second generation plug-ins cars. And that's something, of course, while looking into exactly how we're going to fulfill that. But I think that will be absolutely cars attractive for U.S.
And of course, we have to say you that we can build them in the U.S. as well.
Yeah, because you bring up a good point, which is there is a rising interest in these. We sometimes refer to long-range plug-in hybrids or range extenders.
Basically, the idea, an electric car with a gasoline engine to help out charging the battery so that you don't have that situation where you have that flat battery.
Range extenders seem to be growing in interest. People want them in China. People want them potentially in Europe and in the U.S.
But like I said, you're only building them right now in China. So, do you see a range extender sort of be expanding into basically a global product for you folks?
Yes, a longer range plug-ins if you call it that will definitely be something we need. I mean, if you go back five years in time, our ambition was to be all electric 2030.
And basically, I have the plug-ins to cover that time till 2030 and then go all electric.
I think what we now see is in some regions of the world, we need this bridge to go maybe to 35, maybe coming close to 2040.
So, we need a second bridge, second generation. And they will be much more similar to an electric car. But with the range extender, I mean, there are various concepts how to have this extra range.
You could have with or without mechanical drivetrain to the wheels. So, that will come absolutely. But we will be ready 2030 with a really good lineup of all electric cars and then we will have these backups.
And for the backups of course, as we don't have money without end, we will of course say, how can we do this backup cars or second generation cars in a smart way.
And then of course, we will look into, can we learn and take some parts from our Gili brothers and in that way. And that's the respect is of course, XC70 is one example.
It could be sold in Europe and for you, we have to look twice and see how we can sold with there. But we have some ideas, so have something similar for America as well.
When we come back, more of this interview with Volvo CEO, Hogan Samuelson.
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Like you just mentioned, there's that great opportunity to leverage as you already have and you've proved with the XC60, the relationship with GLE.
Some of the sister brands that you have under the GLE umbrella are already bringing Rage Extenders out into the environment. That means you don't have to necessarily start from scratch. You can use that as your foundation, correct?
And that's absolutely a good example of synergy. How can we face now the big challenges the industry is facing?
We don't need to double invest both in electric and in long range. I mean the bridges you need for ten years. Of course you should look into how can that be done smarter.
Another very good example which is getting clearer and clearer is the software need to be divided more and more. If you look into in China, they need to have their own pilot assist or autopilot systems.
They need to have infotainment, voice control. Very difficult to do with Google translate. You need to really have local voice control systems.
And then of course for us to develop that as well when we are developing for the West and then we have to do with China will be very expensive.
And then we could of course say okay link and call seeker what do you have. And then I'm quite sure they have systems that we really can use for our local Chinese cars.
Because the possibility to mix these software systems is organ. We need to really have a watertight fire wall between these two worlds.
So take restrictions recent so that I think is something we just have to accept but we can do that without getting a lot of extra development cost which we would have to do of course if we did not have this connection with Gile.
And excuse me would you say that because you can tap that knowledge base and that experience from the other Gile brands that are in China.
Is it a potential to save billions because I don't know how much it would cost to develop something like that but I can't imagine it.
Absolutely. I mean there's enormous cost. I mean you could think in a really advanced autopilot system that would work in China.
I mean that's not only one billion that's a lot of money. And so I think that's a really good example.
Only as having a voice control which is really local is also not cheap. You cannot just adapt something from Europe and think it can understand Chinese.
So that is also an example. So I think in the future the core industry will face a very tough competition as the Chinese now enter and take a big share of our global business.
And all I mean the core industry they will put pressure on all of us and then you need to be smart.
What can we do really to lower our cost and I know mentioned two examples. Local software in China, second generation hybrid.
But the third example is of course a lot of hardware components. We can do together and understand the dice and get high volumes.
They'll remember the figure right now but we discussed here this morning air conditioning compressors.
I think we have something above 50 in the group I think was even close to 100 different variants.
And I mean there's no reason why we should need more than 10.
And of course then the cost would less just an example. You could take any other example brake calipers, brake discs, seat structures which is zero jeopardizing any brand identity of Volvo is just better lower cost parts.
And that you can do only if you have a very close cooperation with somebody in China. Otherwise if you just go there and knock on the door at supplier will not do it.
But we will of course together we really have a much stronger buying power and if we start standardizing on the same part numbers even more.
And that's I think is the third example how we will face this new hyper competition which I'm quite sure will come to us in the industry not to Volvo only.
Volvo cars CEO Hokkan Samuelsen spoke with Doug Boldak managing editor of our sibling publication automotive news Europe.
You can read more about that interview on auto news dot com.
Thanks for listening to this bonus episode of daily drive will be back on Monday with a brand new full episode of the show.
About this episode
Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson shares insights on the future of automotive powertrains, emphasizing the shift towards electric vehicles and the role of long-range plug-in hybrids as a transitional solution. He discusses the importance of leveraging synergies with parent company Geely to enhance efficiency and reduce costs, particularly in software development and hardware components. Samuelsson highlights the necessity of adapting to regional demands, especially in China, while maintaining Volvo's commitment to sustainability and innovation in the automotive industry.
