Volvo V90 is poised to take lead in key wagon segment

The coming of the V90 is forecast to shove Volvo past Audi to the very best of Europe's significant substantial superior station wagon section next year, analysts say. However in addition they foresee a substantial general decline for the substantial superior station wagon sector due to increasing interest in crossovers.
Volvo launched pictures and details about the V90 in Stockholm now ahead of the car 's public debut in the Geneva auto-show on March 1, at which time the auto-maker will expose European pricing for the station wagon.
Volvo will start taking V90 orders in Europe after the display. European deliveries of the station wagon begins in summer time soon after its sibling product, the S90 flagship sedan, arrives in showrooms.
U.S. pricing for the V90 will be declared after, as will information on when orders and deliveries will begin in the marketplace. The station wagon is going to be offered Japan but not in China, Volvo stated.
The V90 will change the V70 while a derivative of the V90 will succeed the XC70, Volvo stated.
The Chinese-owned automaker’s V70/XC70 wagons rated 2nd in Europe last year behind the A6 Avant but outsold the BMW 5 series Touring and Mercedes Benz e class station wagon, according to figures from JATO Dynamics (see table, under).
“The new V90 will arrive as its chief rivals, the Audi A6 Avant as well as the BMW 5 series Touring, flip five years old in the marketplace using the latter experiencing quantity drops since 2012,” Felipe Munoz, world-wide automotive analyst at JATO, stated in an email ahead of the V90’s introduction. & ldquo;Therefore, it won’t be problematic for the newest Swedish station-wagon to widen its lead over the BMW and out-sell the Audi.”
Ian Fletcher, principal analyst at IHS Automotive, additionally calls the V90 will over take the A-6 for a while, “even though this is going to be largely to the present A6 arriving at the conclusion of its own product lifecycle,” he stated in an email.
IHS predicts that next yr in Europe Volvo will market about 45,150 V90s and 11,500 units of the V90 version that will change the XC70 to outpace the A6 Avant by 10,000 models.
The Volvo station wagons are likely to win the section again in 2018 but drop the direct to Audi beginning in 2019, IHS amounts reveal
Long history
Volvo claims the V90 reveals its continue dedication to the station-wagon sector (also called the estate section in Europe), where the auto-maker has competed for over 60 60 years commencing with Duett.
“We possess a powerful standing in the estate section,” Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in a statement nowadays. & ldquo;In a lot of people's heads we're recognized as the certain estate brand. While the Volvo brand now stands for mo-Re than estates, we're proud to carry-forward this rich tradition together with the V90.”
JATO’s Munoz is bullish about the V90 because of Volvo’s extended achievement in the sector. & ldquo;The undeniable fact the V70/XC70 continues to be in a position to boost its yearly enrollments despite its age suggests how nicely Volvo is placed in this section and the way the newest merchandise can build with this success.”
In Europe, station wagons accounted for 50 per cent of overall substantial superior vehicle revenue last year compared with 44% for sedans and hatchbacks and 6% for coupes and convertibles, in accordance with JATO amounts.
Munoz and IHS’s Fletcher, nevertheless, consider that Europe’s station wagon sector will suffer due to increasing interest in substantial superior SUVs, which currently out sell station wagons in the area.
In accordance with JATO’s information, superior big SUV registrations in Europe grew 2-9% a year ago to 210,000 models while need for superior big station wagons increased only 1.4% at 195,300 models. Demand for superior big sedans dropped 0.5% at 171,600 models. (JATO and ANE individual sales of substantial superior SUVs/crossovers in the substantial superior section, including station wagons, sedans/hatchbacks and coupes/convertibles.)
“This implies a huge shift is happening,” Munoz stated, “as well as the SUV boom could be a danger to the conventional passenger car sections.”
Fletcher stated that IHS anticipates station wagon sales to fall in Europe this year and stay “at a somewhat lower amount before the conclusion of the decade” when it predicts a complete-yr quantity of less than 178,000, down from 199,658 last year [IHS’s and JATO’s amounts for total-yr substantial superior station wagon sales in Europe vary somewhat].
“Portion of the cause of this will be a era/cycle scenario,” Fletcher stated. & ldquo;Even Though I believe we can also likely say that additional conventional big station wagon buyers will shift up to to the cross over marketplace.”
Queue revamp
The V90 is a part of Volvo's line revamp that began with the XC90 high-end SUV last year accompanied by by the S90, which had its public debut at last month's Detroit auto-show. The S90 switches into creation in the springtime.
The three versions will use Volvo's new HOT TUB modular architecture and can roll off the line in the automaker's major plant in Torslanda, near Gothenburg. Each car will provide a plug in hybrid form as Volvo intends to expand the the choice power-train across its whole line-up.
The V90's plug in hybrid will supply about 4-10 hp as well as a pure-electric range of approximately 50km, Volvo r&d manager Peter Mertens stated in the declaration.
The V90 will contain keys characteristics discovered in the S90, for example Volvo's City Security crash avoidance system that is updated to provide a world-first perform: big creature detection. The attribute can acknowledge an elk or moose, daytime or nighttime, and offer brake support in order to avoid a crash. The station wagon also will provide semi-sovereign driving technology that provides directing assist to maintain the vehicle in its lane at speeds up to 130kph (81 mph) even if there isn't any car in the front.
Volvo, which China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group purchased from Ford this year for $1.8 billion, h-AS ambitious development strategies. It offered a record 503,127 automobiles in 2015 and needs to reach a world-wide quantity of 800,000 by 2020, at which time it plans to double its market-share in Europe to 4%.

The leaders

Station wagons accounted for half of sales in Europe's superior substantial section last yr (2015 quantity and % vary from from 2014)1. Audi A6 67,224 +14% 2. Volvo V70/XC70 49,302 +7% 3. BMW 5-series 41,963 -9% 4. Mercedes e-class 28,248 -10% 5. Mercedes CLS 5,359 +11% Source: JATO Dynamics

It's possible for you to reach Douglas A. Bolduc at [email protected].

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A6
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Hakan Samuelsson

S90
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18.02.2016
ID:3488

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