Our guess is that the plant will be able to make up to around 150,000 electric cars annually (up from roughly 50,000 today).
Volvo Cars announced that by 2022 it will more than triple the electric car production capacity at its Ghent plant in Belgium, from today’s (undisclosed) levels to around 60% of the plant’s total production capacity.
The company does not reveal any numbers, but according to Wiki, the plant peaked at 258,000 in 2005 (in 2015 it was at 252,479). 60% out of 250,000 would be 150,000 all-electric cars per year, while 20% today must be around 50,000 per year.
Today, the Ghent plant makes all-electric Volvo XC40 Recharge, as well as the ICE and PHEV versions. Later this year, the second BEV will be introduced, which will also be produced at the site. In other words, the 150,000 units will split between those two electric cars, we assume.
“Ghent is currently preparing to take a second fully electric Volvo model, based on the CMA modular vehicle architecture, into production later this year. The plant already builds the XC40 Recharge, the company’s first fully electric car, as well as a plug-in hybrid version of the XC40.”
Currently, the Ghent plant is the first and only one that makes all-electric Volvo cars, but the company soon will probably start BEV production also in other places around the world.
“While Ghent is the first of its global manufacturing network to start building fully electric cars, the company also has plans to increase electric car manufacturing capacity at its other facilities around the globe.”
A separate thing is that Volvo will produce EV drive units in-house in Sweden.
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