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Volvo Announces New Plant In Slovakia and Shows New Embla Images

Volvo seized the opportunity presented by a new business development to show the Embla once again. The XC90 successor appears multiple times in an image the Swedish carmaker disclosed to announce that it will build its third European plant. After Torslanda in Sweden and Ghent in Belgium, the company will have a factory in Kosice, Slovakia.
Volvo Embla shows up in the announcement of the company's new plant in Kosice, Slovakia 15 photos
Photo: Volvo
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This new plant will probably manufacture the Embla for European customers. At first, Volvo said it would only make its flagship SUV at the Ridgeville factory in the U.S., side by side with the new Polestar 3. It now seems that this would only be the case while the new Slovakian plant was not ready – and it will take quite a while to be.

Volvo said that construction will begin in 2023. With BYD putting its factories to work ten months after they started building them, we’d expect other carmakers to try to be just as fast. That will not be the case for the Kosice factory. According to Volvo, it should only begin assembling vehicles in 2026, and we have no idea why it will take that long.

It may have to do with the fact that Volvo wants to make only electric cars there. For the company to pull that off, it must secure battery supplies. To complicate things a bit more, the Swedish automaker said this plant would only use climate-neutral energy.

Either Volvo has a nuclear or hydropower power plant nearby its future Kosice unit, or it will build solar and wind power plants close to it. If that is the deal, it will also need a massive energy storage station (ESS) to have a third shift. The plant will make 250,000 EVs per year, and it can be expanded, so this climate-neutral energy source must work at all times. Together, Torslanda and Ghent can produce 600,000 vehicles per year.

The new factory will demand an investment of €1.2 billion ($1.256 billion at the current exchange rate). The Slovakian government convinced Volvo to have its factory in the country with incentives of €267 million ($279 million) and also with “good logistical and transport links to the rest of Europe and access to a good supplier base.
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About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
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Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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