Volvo’s Concept Recharge is the framework for its next generation of cars, which are planned to be all EV by 2030. It seems like those cars might not have Volvo’s usual alphanumeric names, which is good news for those of us that prefer actual names.
The alphanumeric nomenclature — favored by European automakers who have a long history with it — is less of a thing for American automakers outside of the truck space, and also less of a thing for Asian automakers outside of the motorcycle space. Volvo has a long history with calling its cars by a mixture of letters and numbers, though according to Automotive News Volvo might be turning the page on that with the switch to electric. The new flagship EV “will deviate from using letter and number combinations for its Tesla Model X rival,” AN says.
[Volvo CEO Håkan Samuelsson] said Volvo wants to launch a new name for the model because the crossover will:
- Debut a new platform.
- Only be sold online.
- Offer lidar as standard to improve safety.
- Eventually offer unsupervised driving in so-called Ride Model in locations where legislation allows the car’s technology to take control.
- Offer bidirectional charging so customer can feed electricity back to the grid in locations where that is possible.
“Calling that just a new XC90 would be wrong because this is the really a first of its kind,” Samuelsson told Automotive News Europe.
If Volvo does go ahead with a real name for the flagship EV, this won’t be the first time, as anyone who’s owned an Amazon or Duett will tell you (possibly the Jakob also counts but that was unofficial.) And I’m not sure what name would suit an EV Volvo, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Volvo went boring and simply called it the Volvo Recharge, as that has been its branding so far and that is what the concept is called. Anything more interesting, I fear, might be beyond a multinational carmaker.