Have a robust model in a world of noise—it’s like having the one pink T-shirt in a stadium filled with white ones

Severinson would love the public to understand the same thing—that electric is the future when it comes to what we decide to drive. If it isn’t, Volvo, which has committed to going fully electric by 2030, will be facing more scrutiny following a bumpy 2025.

It’s a tough battle. After an initial surge of interest, sales of electric vehicles in Europe and America have struggled. Overstretched governments have withdrawn subsidies, and Donald Trump has described sustainability initiatives as a “green scam.” The twin concerns of range anxiety and price continue to leave customers skeptical. With an ear open to the political mood music, the European Union has just announced the continent will move more slowly on phasing out internal combustion engines, a decision Severinson describes as “going backward.”

Volvo has suffered like any legacy automaker in a world where cars are now mobile smartphones as much as they are ways to travel from A to B. Its 2025 Q4 results, announced in February, saw U.S.-imposed tariffs and deep discounting affect profits. The company’s gross margin—the metric monitored most keenly by analysts—fell to 15.8%, compared with 20.4% in the third quarter. Volvo’s share price slumped by 20% to 22 sek (Swedish kronor; $2.38 usd), well below its 2021 ipo price of 53 sek ($5.73). Revenues fell to 357 billion sek ($38 billion), following a high of 400 billion sek ($42 billion) in 2024.

When you’re nearly 100 years old, volatility comes with the territory. Volvo’s first car—the Jakob—rolled out of the company’s headquarters in 1927. Volvo recommended a cruising speed of 37 mph, considerably faster than the horse-and-cart alternative. The launch was delayed because the car could initially travel only backward; an engineer had fitted the pinion gear on the rear axle the wrong way around.

Roll forward 100 years and Volvo’s next new car, the all-electric ex60, is about to launch in Europe. There is a lot riding on it. A year ago, Håkan Samuelsson returned as chief executive of the company he had helped stabilize and grow between 2012 and 2022. Volvo was in trouble, and critics abounded, calling out the quality, cost, and range of the fleet. Under Samuelsson, Volvo—formerly known as a “car for teachers”—cut costs (3,000 job losses have been announced); insisted it had become cooler; and leaned more heavily on its Swedish heritage (the nation is a byword for good taste and practicality).

Samuelsson agreed to a two-year stint at the helm, and insiders suggest that Severinson is the man most likely to take over next year. He was promoted to the CCO job last summer.

“It’s an electric car without compromises,” Severinson says of the ex60. “You can go up to 810 kilometers [500 miles] and charge it to 340 kilometers [211 miles] in 10 minutes. The limitation on a long-distance drive will not be the battery, it will be your need to go to the toilet and, during the time you’re at the toilet, the car is charged.”

I interviewed Severinson in Gothenburg, Volvo’s Swedish headquarters. The final public “reveal” of the new car has just happened, and there is visible excitement on the factory floor as the first ex60 models roll along the production lines for final testing. Matea Cosic, the new-car project lead for Volvo, proudly shows me the recessed windows and fully electric engine compartment in Volvo’s “secret garage,” where prototypes are kept from prying eyes.

Courtesy of Volvo Cars

Auto Express, a U.K. car magazine, noted: “First impressions suggest that Volvo’s confidence the ex60 will do big things for the brand is well placed.” Early orders have exceeded expectations, and the brand is now considering longer summer working hours to keep up with demand. Carmakers appear to have finally understood that it is not enough to sell consumers a car simply because it is good for the planet. It has to be a very good car as well.

“I think two, three years back, this was a discussion around sustainability and the Paris Agreement,” Severinson says. “We are electrifying for the greater good of the environment.’ That’s not the discussion in society anymore.

“If I want to convince you to buy an electric car [I shared with Severinson that I still drove a gas-engine Audi], I cannot only say, ‘If you do this, you do the world a service.’ I must give you a product which is better for the world and better for you, and that’s what we need to solve with electric cars. It should never, ever be a compromise.”

Three things matter to car buyers: the cost of the car (when it comes to electric, often too high); the range (too low); and the time to charge (too long). Solving “too high, too low, too long” is the mantra for all electric car manufacturers.

“I was in Norway over the last week in -30°c [-22°f] temperatures,” says Severinson. “[The car] works just fine. You have acceleration, which is similar to that of a motorcycle; it’s bloody silent, and every morning it’s always full. It’s like someone came to your petrol car with a tank of petrol and filled it up on your driveway.”

Volvo is owned by Geely, the Chinese carmaker. This partnership might bring scale, brainpower, and manufacturing efficiency, but in today’s political environment it is a double-edged sword. Volvo is facing tariffs from both the U.S. and the eu against Chinese supply lines. Some customers may balk at owning a “Chinese-backed” car.

“I don’t define a company based on the cap table,” Severinson says. “Volvo is a Swedish company; we are listed in Stockholm. We have been in Sweden for nearly 100 years. Our industrial strategy has always been simple: build where you sell and source where you build.

“The whole industry, the whole world, has been on the globalization path up until a few years ago,” he says. “And globalization was great while it lasted. But now we don’t have it anymore. Now it’s regionalization.

“You have China at one end, the U.S. on the other, and Europe somewhere in between. But it’s clear that regionalization is not only driving tariffs and trade barriers. It is also driving technology decisions and, to some extent, consumer sentiment,” he adds.

“Consumers in China have slightly different preferences to consumers in Sweden or Wisconsin. What you need to have in a company like ours is a tailor-made approach on a regional basis without having to duplicate or triplicate investments.”

Volvo is ramping up its production in America, where it has faced criticism over the performance of its flagship electric suv, the ex90. Software fails, overheating seats, and electronic keys that didn’t work led to a public apology. “Unfortunately, we have disappointed many customers,” Anders Bell, Volvo Cars’ chief engineering and technology officer, said last September.

“Software-defined vehicles for the automotive industry is what the smartphone was for the phone industry,” Severinson says. “It allows you to constantly upgrade and make your vehicle better.

“It was bloody difficult to do that. We have basically managed to create our own operating system and our own software factory, but it took a lot of time, and it was much, much more difficult than we anticipated. That was probably the root cause of a lot of the quality complaints we have had about the ex90. You only do zero-to-one once.

“Right now, there is nothing in the automotive industry that is growing that doesn’t have a cord attached to it—plug-in hybrids, battery electric vehicles, that’s where the growth comes from. If we want to grow Volvo Cars, what’s the smart thing to do, logically? Is it to bet on the shrinking segments or to bet on the growing segments? And we strongly believe that the smarter thing to do is to bet where the growth is and to have a higher market share on electric vehicles than we ever had on petrol or diesel engines,” he says.

Volvo will celebrate its 100th birthday next year and will emphasize that history and heritage as it hunts for new customers. “If you have a strong brand in a world of noise, new cars, and new commercials, it’s like having the only red T-shirt in a stadium full of white T-shirts,” notes Severinson. He has bet big on red T-shirts, and is hoping customers like them as much as he does.

This article appears in the April/May 2026: Europe issue of Fortune with the headline “Why this Volvo leader is an electric vehicle convert.”