The CEO of Volvo Construction Equipment (CE) told the world’s press at the Volvo Days event last week that the firm expects the demand for electric machinery to accelerate in coming years, even if the market has proved to be more sluggish than anticipated.
“Electrification is a bumpy ride and it’s not moving as quickly as we anticipated. We are sure that in a couple of years that will change. I think we will be forced to react quickly. So we are investing to be ready for change,” said Volvo CE CEO Melker Jernberg.
Speaking during the press conference held alongside the Volvo Days events, he also suggested Volvo CE is hedging its bets and not overstretching itself by investing in upgrading rather than replacing its manufacturing footprint. The company is clearly concerned at the pace of electrification in the industry.
“We are investing also in partnerships and cooperations. It would be too costly to do it by ourselves. We continue to heavily invest in conventional products,” he said.
“This is our most ambitious New Product Line-Up yet,” added Jernberg, as he introduced the global media back to Eskilstuna. The company returned its global HQ operations back to the Swedish town where Volvo was orginally founded in 1832 last year.
“We are coming through a strong period (after 2023). This is a reassurance to us that we can invest in the future,” he commented, noting that in 2024 there is a ‘strange political situation’ affecting its customers in global territories.
“The world is changing and we are too, we are seeing closing borders, we have elections globally, we have more military spending.” He also notes the difficulties caused by the US imposing high tariffs on Chinese EV tech. One angle of the situation is normalising in the global supply chain,” said Jernbeg.
“We are moving into slow economic growth but in construction machinery we are used to a cyclical business.
New Electric Wheel Loader tested in the UAE
During the press conference, Volvo CE explained that it is “going to the next level” with three new electric products, the L90 wheel loader, EWR150 wheeled excavator and L120 wheel loader, a machine that has been tested in the UAE prior to launch.
“There has been positive feedback on noise and performance,” the media were told.
Despite its machinery development, in 2023, Volvo CE sold 898 just electric machines representing representing 1.5% of overall annual sales that exceeded 60,000.
Melker Jernberg said it wants that figure to reach 30% within the decade: “We will see a crunch in a couple of years and then it will accelerate.”
Of its new generation of Articulated Haulers, Jernberg added: “We are extra proud. Our team have done magic.”
Noticeable from Volvo CE’s biggest ever launch was a strict focus on conventional and electric machines with few announcements made on its development of new hydrogen machines.
However, Jernberg confirmed that Volvo is still working on Hydrogen Fuel Cell tech with partner Daimler.
“We know fuel cells have been on the table for years. But if you have excess of energy it’s a good way to store it. I think we will see some products but not until 2030. We are also testing running hydrogen in combustion engines.”
