Volvo will bring an electric C30 to Frankfurt

The safety conscious car builder Volvo will be changing their theme from city safety to all electric this September at the Frankfurt Motor Show when they unveil an E.V. version of the sporty Volvo C30 hatchback. Although the automaker previously said that they had no plans to put the plug in electric C30 into production. This is very interesting since the last vehicle of this kind from the savvy Swedes made itself known to the world in Frankfurt just one year ago. However, according to a source at the English automotive journal AutoCar: "The all-electric C30 is a car we have talked about previously and formed the basis of the ReCharge concept shown a few years ago. At the moment, the all-electric C30 is just a concept and Volvo has no current plans to put it into production."

The ReCharge Concept is a plug-in hybrid with individual electric wheel motors and batteries that can be recharged via a regular electrical outlet for maximum environmental benefit. The recharging allows the EV to have a range of about 100 kilometres, or 60 miles, on battery power alone before the car’s four-cylinder Flexifuel engine is needed to power the car and recharge the battery. The concept had all of the style and attitude of a sports car and none of the typical hybrid foibles with its blistered arches and large green electric motor filled wheels.

The automaker will make a decision about possible production in the near future. Until then Volvo is going in a bold direction with hybrid technology, instead of staying compact and lightweight, Volvo’s engineers and design teams are planning to bring an efficient diesel plug-in electric hybrid version of the V70 SUV to market by 2012.