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Volvo has no plans to expand into niche segments

"That's not what the customers are expecting," says the automaker's CEO.

Steven Ewing Former managing editor
Steven Ewing spent his childhood reading car magazines, making his career as an automotive journalist an absolute dream job. After getting his foot in the door at Automobile while he was still a teenager, Ewing found homes on the mastheads at Winding Road magazine, Autoblog and Motor1.com before joining the CNET team in 2018. He has also served on the World Car Awards jury. Ewing grew up ingrained in the car culture of Detroit -- the Motor City -- before eventually moving to Los Angeles. In his free time, Ewing loves to cook, binge trash TV and play the drums.
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2019 Volvo XC40
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2019 Volvo XC40

Rather than chop its stylish SUV into a weird coupe-like creation, Volvo will instead add an electrification option to the XC40.

 Steven Ewing/Roadshow

Luxury automakers sure do love splitting niche cars into sub-niche cars these days. Crossovers can apparently be coupes. Sedans can be Gran Coupes. It's all a big ol' mess of seemingly overlapping subsegments.

Volvo , thankfully, doesn't want any part of that.

"That's not what the customers are expecting," Håkan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo Cars, told Roadshow in an interview Wednesday at the Los Angeles Auto Show . Now that the company has fully redesigned its entire US portfolio, and the still-new-feeling is the brand's oldest product, there are no plans to enter new niches.

"We will work on not widening the scope," Samuelsson said. Instead, Volvo will on adding electrification options to its full model range, and improving its infotainment offerings. A plug-in hybrid version of the compact crossover is coming in the next few years, and a Google-powered infotainment system will spread to all of the brand's products in the very near future.

"That," Samuelsson said, "is more important than new body shapes."

Volvo XC40 R-Design has black exterior accents and lava on the floor

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