Akhil Krishnan, vice president of Volvo’s ‘60’ line, echoed this when we asked him about a new estate car. He said: “If there’s a business case, why not? It depends on how the market is, but of course estate cars are an emotional thing for those who really like estate cars.”
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A new Volvo estate car could still happen
Very importantly, Volvo hasn’t given an unequivocal ‘no’ when we’ve repeatedly asked various execs at the brand whether it will make a new estate car, including CEO Håkan Samuelsson.
We recently asked him if Volvo’s new, highly scalable EV architecture, SPA3, which underpins the EX60, could be used for an electric station wagon to which he simply replied: “That’s an interesting opportunity.”
Chief commercial officer Erik Severinson also told us: “SPA3 is a very capable architecture to do big cars, small cars, high and low cars, which is a prerequisite for any estate discussion.” Krishnan hinted the same, so the door is clearly being left open for now.
The SPA3 architecture will underpin all of Volvo’s new electric cars from here on, and features plenty of cutting-edge tech such as cell-to-body integration for the battery pack, an 800-volt electrical system and weight-saving, complexity-reducing megacasting construction. But it also unlocks more cabin space, according to Krishnan, and a lot more freedom for the designers, allowing them to accommodate big tall SUVs plus, theoretically, low, sleek estate cars.
Volvo says it’s building up to the “most ambitious product plan in its history,” which will be outlined on 17 September – and we can only hope it will include at least one practical Scandi station wagon.
In the meantime, if you fancy a new Volvo V60 estate, customers save £1,800 on average by ordering through the Auto Express Buy A Car service.
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