Volvo braces for challenging year ahead after more than doubling EV sales and breaking revenue record in 2022
Volvo Cars has shared its full year report for 2022, showcasing record revenue numbers for the automaker’s entire history as it moves closer to becoming a fully-electric brand. After a strong share of EV sales in Q4, Volvo’s total percentage for the year more than doubled compared to 2021, but the automaker warns that although it successfully navigated a turbulent 2022, 2023 could prove to be just as challenging.
Volvo Cars Corp. is a global automaker headquartered in Torslanda, Sweden, and owned by Chinese conglomerate Geely Holding Group. In recent years, Volvo has helped lead by example, taking some of the industries biggest strides in embracing electrification and carbon neutrality across its various marques and production processes on its way to becoming be a fully-electric brand by 2030.
2022 was a big year for the automaker. In addition to exploring new EV technologies like wireless charging, it has begun touting several models in its next all-electric wave. This past November, we got our first full look at the upcoming EX90, which Volvo is advertising as the safest vehicle it has ever built.
It will soon join Volvo’s other EVs on the sales sheet like the C40 and XC40, which both saw refreshes that included added range, improved charging speeds, and a new RWD powertrain option. We should also see what Volvo Cars is calling its smallest and cheapest EV model sometime this summer, alongside an electric minivan – although its unclear if that EV will make it to the US.
While Volvo’s arsenal of all electric options is sure to grow in 2023, its current EVs did much of the legwork in 2022 in helping the brand see its best sales to date. We will break down some of those numbers below as we look ahead to this coming fiscal year, one in which Volvo expresses could be a tough one.
Volvo Cars EV sales accounted for 18% of 2022 total
According to Volvo’s full year sales report for 2022, it has much to celebrate, and EVs were a huge part of its success. Revenue was $32 billion for the year, up 17% compared to 2021 and the highest ever recorded in the automaker’s near 100 year history.
Its operating income (EBIT) was around $2.2 billion (+10%). Excluding joint ventures and associates, however, Volvo’s EBIT was $1.7 billion, down nearly 16% compared to a year ago.
Volvo Cars points out that the true highlight of a trying year was its EV sales. Its numbers for fully-electric models were 11% of its total, more than doubling sales compared to 4% in 2021. A huge factor in this equation was Volvo’s Q4 EV sales, which reached their highest point ever at 18% compared to a mere 6% at the same point in 2021.
If you include Volvo’s entire Recharge lineup of BEVs and plug-in hybrids, it accounted for 33% of total sales and 41% in Q4 alone. The automaker has found a huge appetite for its EVs in Brazil, Uruguay, Thailand, and Indonesia where Recharge sales were 100% last quarter. Norway was 98%.
Those Recharge sales numbers helped Volvo reduce its overall CO2 emissions per vehicle by 15% as it looks to reach a 40% reduction per vehicle by 2025. Volvo Cars president and CEO Jim Rowan spoke:
We managed through the heavy turbulence of the year and made significant progress on our strategic ambitions in 2022, as we accelerated towards our aim to become a fully electric car company by the end of the decade and climate neutral by 2040.
Volvo admits it was plagued by supply chain constraints in 2022, particularly in the first half of the year. By the second half, the automaker explains it was able to bounce back and bolstered production by 15%. 2023 looks like it could be just as challenging for the automaker, but it remains optimistic:
While 2023 looks to be another challenging year, the company is hopeful that the COVID-related supply shortages from China are behind it and that it continues to see steady improvement in the supply of semiconductors. In addition, Volvo Cars is optimistic that the price of lithium will start to decline towards the end of the year, in line with many of the independent reports recently published. Despite the global turbulence, uncertainty and the recent price increases, Volvo Cars continues to see healthy demand for its cars. As ever, the company continues to closely monitor the external environment and adapt accordingly.
Looking ahead to 2023, Volvo Cars expects double digit sales growth while increasing the production volumes of its EVs. Just as long as there are no “unexpected supply chain disruptions.” Rowan once again spoke:
We have demonstrated in 2022 that we have turned up our execution engine. This will continue to deliver in 2023.
“Executive motor,” Jim. The word you’re looking for is “motor.”
On to 2023.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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Environment
Podcast: Trump/GOP go after EV/solar, Tesla, Ford, GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
Today’s episode is brought to you by Bosch Mobility Aftermarket—A global leader and trusted provider of automotive aftermarket parts. To celebrate Amazon Prime Day July 8th through 11th, Bosch Mobility is offering exclusive savings on must-have auto parts and tools. Learn more here.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.
Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
- Electrek FSGP 2025: New teams, new cars, same solar spirit
- Congress votes to send 2 million US jobs to China, increase deficit, energy costs
- Tesla (TSLA) confirms 384,000 deliveries in Q2 2025, right on expectations
- Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller
- Tesla launches Oasis Supercharger with solar farm and off-grid batteries
- Tesla unveils its LFP battery factory, claims it’s almost ready
- Here’s why Ford’s electric vehicle sales crashed by nearly a third in Q2
- The Chevy Equinox EV is GM’s breakout star, but that’s not the only surprise
- Xpeng launches G7, a new Tesla Model Y competitor for just $27,000
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:
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