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Volvo Sees Double-Digit Sales Drop in 2022, Blames Supply Chain Issues, COVID Lockdowns

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for some car manufacturers, as most of them have started releasing their annual sales numbers. But not all of them did good, and Volvo is but one company to have witnessed a significant drop.
Volvo XC60 12 photos
Photo: Volvo
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With 615,121 vehicles sold in 2022, the Swedish company was down 12.0% compared to 2021, when they shipped 698,639 units. Europe remained their biggest market, with 247,413 units sold, down 15.7% from the 293,471 sales recorded the year before. Out of these, 90,024 were plug-in hybrids, and 45,690 electric vehicles, down 21% and up 175.7% respectively.

In China, Volvo sold 162,322 cars, down 5.4% from 2021’s 171,676. Plug-in hybrids accounted for 9,216 units, and EV sales went up from 905 to 2,999 units. In the United States, they shipped 102,038 vehicles, down 16.5%, and sales of PHEVs and EVs were up by 25.4% and 14.3% respectively, to 20,601 and 7,308 respectively. In other regions, they delivered 103,348 cars, a 7.2% drop.

Volvo Cars’ full year sales performance was affected by challenges across the supply chain, as well as production restraints caused by component shortages and Covid-related lockdowns in China,” Volvo explains in the official press release. “Despite this, demand for Volvo cars remained robust. In the month of December, Volvo Cars sold 72,663, up 12.8 percent compared with the same month last year.

What was the automaker’s best-selling model last year, you ask? Well, that would be the XC60. The premium compact crossover thus retains the crown of the most popular Volvo worldwide, with 195,338 units sold in 2022, down from 215,635 in 2021. The smaller XC40 followed it, with 169,206 sales, down from 2021’s 201,037, while the XC90 flagship completed the podium, with 97,130, down from 108,231.

The brand’s sales should increase in the coming years, considering that they have new products about to hit the market. One of them is the EX90, which will start arriving in the United States in early 2024. The electric model recently made its local debut during CES, in Las Vegas, and will hit the assembly line at South Carolina as of later this year. Volvo is already accepting pre-orders for the two versions that will make their way to dealers.

Both of them feature a 107 kWh battery pack, with 250 kW DC charging, which can be juiced up from 10 to 80% in 30 minutes. The lesser model uses a pair of electric motors that generate a combined 408 hp and 568 lb-ft (770 Nm) of torque, and the upper grade gets 510 hp and 671 lb-ft (910 Nm) in total, for a 0 to 62 mph (0-100 kph) in 4.9 seconds. Things such as the Google Assistant, smartphone integration, semi-autonomous driving system, and others will be on deck in the Volvo EX90.
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About the author: Cristian Gnaticov
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After a series of unfortunate events put an end to Cristian's dream of entering a custom built & tuned old-school Dacia into a rally competition, he moved on to drive press cars and write for a living. He's worked for several automotive online journals and now he's back at autoevolution after his first tour in the mid-2000s.
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