Volvo Cars expects EVs to drive sales in India in 2023

Gurugram Swedish luxury carmaker Volvo Cars expects electric cars to play a significant role in its bid to close in on record sales in India this year, a senior company official said on Wednesday.

The company unveiled its all-electric SUV C40 Recharge in India, which will be launched in August and deliveries to start September onwards. The vehicle will be the company's second electric offering in India after its fully-electric XC40 Recharge launched last year. "2023 has started on a very promising note and we believe that we will do much better this year as compared to the last few years.

Since the pandemic I think the market was a bit slow and then we had supply issues. "Supply issue is still around us but I believe that we should go back close to the 2018 number which was our peak," Volvo Car India Managing Director Jyoti Malhotra said.

In 2018, Volvo Car India had sold 2,600 units. Last year it sold around 1,800 units in the domestic market. Asked if the company could cross record sales this year, he said, "We want to cross it. From the demand side I am very confident but from the supply side there are still constraints." The supply chain constraints are mostly to do with semiconductors, he said, adding the average waiting period at present is about three months across models.