Volvo Car UK says its decision to launch two new low-CO2 DRIVe versions of its S80 saloon and V70 estate models, addresses increased emphasis on the British carbon tax environment.
Both variants come within UK vehicle excise duty Band C at £35 (US$56) per year, with the S80 and V70 delivering CO2 emissions of 119g/km. Standard models pay well over £100 a year.
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“We started last year with the smaller models and wanted to extend that, which is why we launched the S80 and V70,” a Volvo spokeswoman told just-auto.
“We will continue to develop low CO2-emitting cars – we believe the UK wants it. There is so much CO2 tax going on road tax.”
Volvo concedes the focus on CO2 is probably more important for the fleet market, but maintains retail customers will want the lower-tax option too, although percentage splits between the two were not available.
In the premium segment against competitors Audi and BMW, Volvo said it had the smallest engine and lowest tax bands with the new S80 and V70 derivatives.
Volvo is evaluating hybrid alternatives, although this was “at least four years off.”
The Swedish manufacturer enjoyed a buoyant UK performance last year “considering the recession” and posted market share and sales up 12% and 4% respectively, which were undoubtedly helped, but not exclusively, by the scrappage scheme.
“Scrappage did help us quite a bit, which we weren’t particularly expecting,” added the spokeswoman, “but we also saw an increase in our retail sales as well, so it wasn’t just scrappage that helped us deliver a good year.
“DRIVe has been extremely successful for us across all models.” Roughly 52% of Volvo’s C30 sales, 50% of XE60, 52% of S40 and 67% of V50 sales were of the low-CO2 models.
Volvo said it expected “more of the same” for 2010, focusing on low CO2 vehicles and particularly with the redesigned S60 coming out later this year – “a huge segment” although it was unlikely the XC90 would benefit from such a green version.
For the S80 and V70 derivatives, the alternator only charges the battery when the engine is operating with a low load, for example when going downhill. Equally, the belt driving the alternator and air conditioning compressor has reduced friction.
