Next Volvo XC90 to Be Offered Only With Four-Cylinder Powerplants

This piece of news may be quite shocking to some, who know the current Volvo XC90, and the fact that the size of its engine range goes from 2.4 liters, to 4.4 liters. Well, in an effort to reduce the average emissions of their entire fleet of cars to just 95 g/km CO2 by 2020, the all-new XC90, due in late 2013, will get no engines larger than 2 liters.

This is a rather drastic move by Volvo, but one which definitely shows that the Swedish manufacturer is doing more than just talking about becoming sustainable and environmentally neutral, unlike most other manufacturers which use ‘green’ purely as a marketing scheme to sell gas guzzlers.

Volvo claim that with the help of their new SPA (Scaleable Platform Architecture) platform, which is light and very strong, they will be able to keep the weight of the vehicle low (as well as the size - the new XC90 will be smaller than the current offering), thus enabling it to achieve six-cylinder levels of performance with four-cylinder powerplants, or better.

The SPA platform will be used in a variety of new Volvo vehicles, and it will be specifically designed to accommodate hybrid drivetrains - a big advantage as it will never have to be reengineered for the job. This piece of news has made us very curious as to what Volvo has in store, but we have a sneaking suspicion that the upcoming XC90 will be a revolutionary vehicle in the segment, and the industry, and every bit as good as Volvo say it will be.

Story via autoexpress.co.uk