No US-Bound Electric Volvo C30

Volvo has already presented the electric C30 at the 2010 North American International Auto Show so the company can now proceed to other important steps for bringing the vehicle on the market. One such milestone is to decide which are the markets to receive the car and according to Lennart Stegland, president of Volvo's Special Vehicles unit, the electric C30 will be a pure European model.

This means no US-bound vehicle. At least for now, as the aforementioned Volvo official said in a statement quoted by Autonews.

"For the time being, the volume is all for Europe," he said. "The business case is not obvious."

Volvo C30 will be equipped with batteries that could be recharged in around six to eight hours using a standard outlet. And although this could sound a bit disappointing for such an advanced electric vehicle, this is actually a market requirement as the European Union is yet to make a decision on quick-charging standards. If these are approved, electric cars could be recharged in three hours of even less.

The C30 battery is good for 130 km/h and needs 11 seconds to reach 100 km/h. The C30 BEV has a range of 150 km which the Swedish say it’s more than most European need each day.

At first, Volvo will produce 50 cars to be used in Sweden for collecting data and see how the vehicles react to various types of climates. Depending on the results, Volvo will starts a small production of 1,000 cars per year. After that, the Swedish unit will make a decision on whether to bring the car in other regions of the world, including the United States.