ABB has announced the strengthening of its long-standing partnership with Geely-owned Volvo Cars to supply more than 1,300 robots and functional packages to build the next generation of electric vehicles. It also says the robots will support Volvo Cars’ ambitious sustainability targets.

“The automotive industry’s historic transformation, driven by increasing consumer demand for electric vehicles and a desire to operate more sustainably, is creating new opportunities as well as challenges for global manufacturers,” said Marc Segura, ABB Robotics President. “This latest commitment from our partner Volvo Cars demonstrates our shared focus of delivering more sustainable manufacturing. Through our new, energy efficient large robot family and OmniCore controllers we will help to deliver energy savings of up to 20 percent at sites around the world.”

The agreement includes functional packages covering various production tasks, from spot-welding, riveting, and dispensing to flow drilling and ultrasonic weld inspection. ABB says each package is a ready-to-use, customer-proven combination of hardware, software and services. They will be implemented at Volvo Cars’ facilities in Torslanda, Sweden and Daqing, China.

Alongside the hardware and functional packages, ABB claims its latest range of OmniCore robot controllers will help to deliver energy savings of up to 20 percent at sites due to their ‘highly efficient power electronics and use of regenerative braking within the robot’.

During the deployment, ABB will ensure production remains uninterrupted through the use of its RobotStudio planning and programing software platform to visualize and optimize the deployment before the robots are installed. By developing and validating the required automation systems in a virtual space, Volvo Cars and ABB say they will create solutions that can be engineered once but deployed multiple times.

Volvo Cars and ABB share a long relationship and joint developments to continuously improve the capabilities of industrial robots in car manufacturing. This latest project will see the two companies continue to work together over the next few years, with the first deployments anticipated in early 2024. It is the latest in a series of solutions by ABB aimed at helping the global automotive industry reach its ambitious sustainability targets and transition to electric vehicle production.