"Volvo Plans Conventional, Diesel and Plug-In Hybrids, Maybe Some for U.S." Green Car Advisor

Volvo Plans Conventional, Diesel and Plug-In Hybrids, Maybe Some for U.S.

There's been a lot of electric car and hybrid news out of France in the past week as automakers hosted the media at a preview of the Paris Auto Show.

Most of the cars, though, are unlikely to see these shores as they are derivatives of European models that wouldn't meet U.S. safety standards (and, some auto executives and marketing gurus insist, consumer demands for spacious interiors) without so much added weight that their alternative powertrains would no longer be practical.

One potential exception comes from Volvo, which has been working on conventional, diesel-electric and plug-in hybrids for years now and late last week announced that it will be bringing all of the above to market.

The first to come, a micro-hybrid in 2011, isn't likely to be sold outside of Europe. But for 2012 Volvo plans a diesel-electric hybrid that will combine the company's front-wheel drive D5 turbodiesel with an electric motor to drive the rear wheels.

And then, in an as-yet unannounced year sometime after the diesel hybrid, Volvo plans to launch a plug-in hybrid rooted in the California-designed ReCharge concept (above) it showed at the 2007 Frankfurt Auto Show.

Info disseminated in Paris says the plug-in would use a battery pack (the chemistry wasn't disclosed, but figure on one of the lithium-ion variants)

That could be recharged overnight by plugging it into a common household circuit (remember, in Europe, common household current is 220 volts, not the 110 volts used in the U.S.) and could provide the car with 100 kilometers (62 miles) of all-electric travel before an on-board, internal combustion engine would kick in.

The engine wouldn't run the wheels but - shades of the upcoming Chevrolet Volt - would generate juice for the electric drive system and, simultaneously, recharge the batteries.

Volvo is benefitting from a $10 million, cooperative program launched earlier this year by the Swedish government, the country's automakers and several Swedish power, fuel cell and battery companies, to jumpstart plug-in development.

While the company wouldn't say which countries would get its various alternative powertrain offerings in coming years, we figure that the diesel-electric hybrid has a good chance of getting a U.S. variant, and that the plug-in is a sure bet for North America.