Volvo has revised its electrification targets for Australia after previously committing to an all-electric vehicle (EV) lineup by the end of this year.

Back in 2022, local managing director Stephen Connor pledged that Volvo Car Australia would go EV-only heading into 2026. However, that hasn’t come to pass, with the brand still set to offer petrol-powered vehicles for the foreseeable future.

The Chinese-owned, Swedish-headquartered brand has also walked back its ambitious global electrification targets, which included a commitment to selling only electric cars by 2030.

Speaking to Australian media at a brand event earlier this week, Mr Connor said Volvo Car Australia is still striving to hit its electrification goals, although the timeline has shifted. The arrival of the mid-size EX60 electric SUV – slated to arrive in mid-2026 – now shapes up as a key moment in the automaker’s EV transition.

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“In the long term we are still fully committed, both on the local level and global level, to be fully electrified,” he said.

“We’re still committed to 2040, and being climate neutral. They’re still key milestones.

“When the EX60 arrives, that’s the time when locally we’ll sit back and go, ‘well, now we’ve got a car in every single segment, do we commit fully and runout the XC90 and XC60?’”

So, why the shift in strategy? Simply, not enough people have been buying EVs to justify such a hasty transition. Conversely, local demand for hybrids has increased, particularly plug-in hybrids – hybrid sales jumped by 76 per cent last year, while PHEV sales were up over 100 per cent.