Onward and upward for Volvo. Maybe literally

As unlikely as it may be, Volvo – long-time maker of stubbornly boxy station wagons – has established itself as the auto maker to watch in 2018. Now in the middle of a 180-degree turnaround, coming back from the brink of irrelevance, the Swedish company finds itself at the vanguard of a rapidly changing industry.

How? It's not because everything Volvo does is good; far from it. And it's not simply because Volvo is launching a new lineup of entry-level luxury cars and SUVs in 2018 and beyond, all of which will be clean-sheet designs. No, Volvo is the one to watch next year because, in addition to all that, it's working on some weird, exciting stuff, too. From flying cars to supercar-slaying electric coupes, shunning V-6 and V-8 engines, and going all in early with electrification, Volvo is interesting again for the first time in more than a decade.

The backstory is that Volvo was bought by Chinese auto maker Geely in 2010, after being sold by Ford following the recession.

"When we were sold to the Chinese, we didn't know what to expect," said Anders Gunnarson, who has worked for Volvo since 1991. "But let's say we haven't been more Swedish since, because we got to invest in the company. We [the employees] were trusted, and we were encouraged."

Mostly recently, Gunnarson worked as an exterior design manager on the XC40, the newest, smallest, cheapest SUV in Volvo's range.

"We as designers … you try to create a halo of what you're trying to achieve, and then you try to stick with that. Before [under Ford], there were compromises, a lot of compromises. You were restricted by cost, production and so forth, so you made a design that was something between what everyone wished. But now, it's without compromise."

Future vehicles

Volvo's lineup can be divided in two, between the old Ford-era models still haunting showrooms, and the all-new Geely-era products. The former are generally subpar, while the later are usually contenders for best-in-class honours.

The XC40 is the first model on Volvo's new Compact Modular Architecture (CMA). Expect other entry-level models in the 40 cluster in the next year or two. Given the current lineup, a new small hatchback seems likely to replace the current Ford-era V40 that's still on sale in Europe.

Volvo's bigger cars are on the Scalable Product Architecture (SPA). Those currently include the large XC90 SUV, medium XC60 SUV, as well as the large S90 sedan, V90 wagon and V90 Cross-Country wagon. In 2018, you can expect the mid-range 60 cluster to fill out, including a new V60 wagon and S60 sedan.

Engines

Volvo is unusual among luxury auto makers in that it doesn't make six- or eight-cylinder engines, let alone V-12s.

"That was questioned – how can you skip six-cylinders and V-8s and still claim to be a premium brand?" asked Fredrik Ulmhage, a program manager in Volvo's powertrain division. "But I think we've proven that, if you want more power, you can do it with electrification."

All of the company's new models on sale in Canada share the same basic four-cylinder motor, which is available in three versions: (1) turbocharged; (2) turbocharged and supercharged; (3) turbocharged and supercharged with an electric motor. That third version is a plug-in hybrid, labelled T8. Its combined output in the XC90 is rated at 407 horsepower (320 from gasoline and 87 from electricity) and 472 lb-ft of torque, equal to what you'd get out of a good V-8.

Cylinder-count is still a useful number for estimating a car's performance, and has been for roughly 100 years. But in a hybrid-electric future, that number won't mean as much, if anything.

Electrification

By 2019, Volvo wants all of its new cars from 2019 on to be electrified. Ulmhage defined that as cars in which, "in some way, propulsion comes from an electric motor." That includes mild hybrids, plug-ins and full electric vehicles.

Volvo was the first auto maker to make such a commitment and its timeline for electrification is more ambitious than rivals. Sales of pure electric vehicles are a barely visible slice of the overall pie; plug-ins account for only 1.25 per cent of new vehicles sold in Canada as of November, according to Green Car Reports. But Volvo is pushing ahead.

Ulmhage links the decision to Swedish culture. "Having that beautiful [landscape], seeing other places in the world where they don't have that, you come home and feel … this is nice." It's worth protecting: "We have this allemansratt – all people have the right to be in nature and enjoy it, to put up a tent and sleep there. But it comes with a responsibility too: Leave it as it was when you arrived."

Cars as service

Other auto makers have raised the idea of car subscriptions, in which a flat monthly fee gets you insurance, maintenance and the use of any car in the lineup. Volvo recently announced its own service – Care by Volvo – that will cost $600 a month with no down payment. That includes an XC40, insurance, maintenance and other perks. Details of the Canadian program, including pricing, are still being worked out, a Volvo Canada spokesperson said, but we should have that info next year. When it arrives, Care by Volvo will likely be the first such car-subscription service in the country.

The weird stuff

Geely, Volvo's parent company, has been investing in other brands too. Raising eyebrows everywhere, the Chinese auto maker recently bought U.S. flying-car startup Terrafugia. It's tempting to imagine there's a bunch of engineers somewhere working on a version of the XC90 that can take to the skies, but that's probably not what's going on here. At least not yet.

More realistically, we could see a sportier Volvo with handling tuned by Lotus. The boutique maker of lightweight British sports cars was also recently purchased by Geely. Given what it has already accomplished with Volvo, it'll be exciting to see what Lotus can do with proper financial backing.

Last but not least, Geely has also spun off Volvo's performance/racing division Polestar into its own company based in China. It'll be under the design direction of Volvo's chief stylist, Thomas Ingenlath. Polestar 1 won't go into production until 2019, but with 600 hybrid horsepower, a 150-kilometre range in electric-only mode and a beautiful carbon-fibre body, it is a tantalizing prospect.

It's all a far cry from the straight-edge Swedish firm we used to know; there's not a single boxy station wagon in sight.

The writer was a guest of the auto maker. Content was not subject to approval.

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