Beautiful new electric car world: Volvo expects competition from IT industry – n-tv.de NEWS

 Economy
 

 Saturday, 22 August 2015

 
 
 

 
 Want Apple and Google are really carmaker? No question moves the industry probably longer. Volvo CEO Samuelsson takes the tech corporations as competitors seriously, but calmed down with a simple wisdom.
 

 
 

Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson is before Apple and Google as a new competitor for automakers on guard. “I think we should not underestimate that,” he said in an interview with the financial news agency dpa-AFX. Google has already developed a self-propelled car, according to media reports the iPhone maker Apple is working on its own electric car. In the car industry, it is debatable whether the two US companies want to make the established automakers real competition, or rather pushing into business with data about the car and its driver.

Samuelsson had Volvo earlier this year in relation to the “Car Week” itself brought into the conversation for a possible collaboration with Apple. If Apple zukäme at Volvo, he had said that Sweden would certainly think about it. But this it has not come: “We have no concrete dialogue,” Samuelsson made clear now. He pointed instead on our own experiments with self-driving cars.

“It’s not as easy to build cars”

 For autonomous driving Volvo has also map service Here at a glance. The three German car manufacturers Audi, BMW and Daimler have recently announced its acquisition of Nokia. “Of course we need reliable card information, especially for self-propelled vehicles,” Samuelsson said. Here is an alternative here, but Volvo wanted to preserve flexibility. To automatically exchange information about congestion or parking, for example, cars About the map service. BMW, Daimler and VW group want to become so also independent of Google and Apple, according to the industry

Also Volvo observed that US corporations exactly. “When serious interest in the car market show, of course you should be prepared to see them as competitors, “Samuelsson said. Behind Google and Apple put a lot of money. Volvo will pursue the ambitions, greater fear of the tech companies they had not. “It’s not so easy to build cars,” Samuelsson said.

Plug-in hybrids are not the end

With new drive systems of Volvo CEO sees his company on the right path. The company, which belongs to the Chinese carmaker Geely since 2010, currently operates primarily on so-called plug-in hybrids, which refueled with fuel, but can also be recharged with electricity. When the battery is empty, takes over the engine. Almost all the major manufacturers have such cars on offer.

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From the electric C30, the only previous all-electric Volvo, only 250 units were built. “I would imagine that we are perhaps a little more open to a completely electric vehicle today”, the Volvo chief said now. It depends heavily on the development of battery technology. “I think you need a range of the order 400 or 500 kilometers to a real alternative to have,” Samuelsson said. In addition, charging times would be shortened: “One can not accept coffee break of five or six hours, the need to go much faster..” The low capacity of batteries is one of the biggest problems for electric cars. Long stretches of motorway are hardly possible without recharging, and the network of charging stations is still very thin. In the auto industry Samuelsson nevertheless expected but changes: “I think we will see a shift. More batteries and smaller internal combustion engines”

Also, Volvo could venture a new attempt to electromobility, Samuelsson but can not yet be look at the cards. When asked whether there were plans for an e-version of the SUV flagship XC90, Volvo said the boss only: “might not be entirely wrong.”

 
 

  Source: n-tv.de
 

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